Jl/JAN  is  the  hardest 
•**  *~  proposition  a  wo 
man  has  to  go  up  against. 


Biographical 
Edition 


STRICTLY  BUSINESS 


O.  HENRY 

BIOGRAPHICAL  EDITION 

STRICTLY 
BUSINESS 

MORE  STORIES  OF 
THE  FOUR  MILLION 


WITH  A  NOTE  BY  WILLIAM  JOHNSTON 

VOLUME  I 


GARDEN    CITY  NEW   YORK 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 

1925 


COPYRIGHT,  1903,  I9O4,  I9OS,  I9O6,  I9O8,  I9IO, 
BY  DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY.  ALL  RIGHTS 
RESERVED.  COPYRIGHT,  I9O7,  BY  THE  RIDGWAY 
COMPANY.  PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  AT 
THE  COUNTRY  LIFE  PRESS,  GARDEN  CITY,  N.  Y, 


Stack 
Annex 

\ 


v  ,\ 
CONTENTS 

PAGB 

I.     STRICTLY  BUSINESS        .....  I 

II.    THE  GOLD  THAT  GLITTERED   ...  19 

III.  BABES  IN  THE  JUNGLE  .....  31 

IV.  THE  DAY  RESURGENT   .....  40 
V.    THE  FIFTH  WHEEL  ......  50 

VI.    THE  POET  AND  THE  PEASANT       .     .  68 

VII.    THE  ROBE  OF  PEACE    .....  77 

VIII.    THE  GIRL  AND  THE  GRAFT      ...  84 

IX.    THE  CALL  OF  THE  TAME    ....  93 

X.    THE  UNKNOWN  QUANTITY  ....  102 

XI.    THE  THING'S  THE  PLAY     .     .     .     .  in 

XII.    A  RAMBLE  IN  APHASIA                       .  122 


DISCIPLINING  O.  HENRY* 

THERE  was  once  a  Western  artist,  come  to 
New  York,  who  at  first  wrote  home  glowing 
letters  about  the  various  literary  celebrities  he 
was  meeting,  but  there  came  a  time  when  to  a 
brother  artist  he  ruefully  remarked: 

"It's  best  to  know  these  chaps  only  by  their 
writings.  Once  you  get  acquainted  with  them, 
they're  just  like  everybody  else." 

With  equal  truth  it  may  be  said  that  no  recol 
lections  of  intimate  friends  ever  give  the  insight 
into  a  departed  author's  real  personality  half  so 
well  as  do  his  letters.  Especially  does  this  apply 
to  a  man  of  innate  shyness  who  perpetually 
cloaked  his  personality  with  a  gentle  reserve 
that  seldom  was  penetrated.  Indeed,  each  time 
I  read  some  new  recollections  of  "an  intimate 
friend  of  O.  Henry,"  I  always  picture  his  ghost 
sitting  somewhere  over  a  celestial  highball — 
they  must  have  highballs  there  or  it  wouldn't  be 
Heaven  for  him — smiling  sarcastically.  For 
Sydney  Porter,  gentle,  lovable,  talented  though 
he  was,  had  no  intimate  friends.  Stunned  per 
haps  by  the  hard  blows  that  life  had  dealt  him, 
there  was  none  to  whom  he  revealed  himself 
without  reserve,  to  whom  he  confided  his  hopes, 
his  ambitions,  his  estimate  of  himself. 

While  the  writer  (for  a  period  of  nearly  three 

*Copyright,  1921,  by  Geo.  H.  Doran  Company. 
vii 


viii  DISCIPLINING  O.  HENRY 

years  his  editorial  taskmaster,  exacting  from 
him  a  story  a  week  as  per  contract)  perforce  saw 
him  often,  and  while  this  acquaintanceship  was 
further  cemented  by  frequent  luncheons  and 
dinners,  and  by  evenings  spent  over  the  pool 
table  or  in  the  bowling  alleys,  nothing  in  the 
memories  of  this  personal  contact  is  half  so  re 
vealing  of  the  real  O.  Henry  as  some  cherished 
letters,  fragments  of  an  almost  daily  correspond 
ence  carried  on  for  many  months. 

The  task  of  providing  an  original  story  each 
week  was  an  arduous  one  for  even  as  prolific  a 
writer  as  O.  Henry;  yet  his  letters  explaining 
wrhy  the  stories  were  late  in  being  delivered, 
show  almost  as  much  his  powers  of  invention  as 
do  the  tales  themselves.  Sometimes  his  excuse 
was  a  visitor  who  stayed  overlong.  The  next 
time  it  would  be  something  about  "dizziness 
on  rising,"  and  again  a  thrilling  account  of 
"Colonel  Bright  and  his  justly  celebrated  dis 
ease,"  candor  compelling  him  to  say  in  conclu 
sion:  "Good  old  doc  says  it  ain't  the  genuine 
thing  but  it  took  six  prescriptions  and  wasn't 
any  slouch  of  an  imitation." 

At  another  time  a  stern  editorial  demand, 
"Where's  this  week's  story?"  would  be  replied 
to  with  a  whimsical  note  that  likely  as  not  would 
read: 

What  you  say?  Let's  take  an  evening  off  and  strike 
the  Cafe  Francis  for  a  slight  refection.  I  like  to  be  waked 
up  suddenly  there  by  the  music  and  look  across  at  the 
red-haired  woman  eating  smelts  under  an  original  by 
Glackens. 

Peace  for  Yours, 

S.  P. 


DISCIPLINING  O.  HENRY  ix 

By  way  of  explaining  his  dilatoriness  in  de 
livering  a  story  when  due,  he  wrote : 

Being  entirely  out  of  tune  with  the  Muse,  I  went  out  and 
ameliorated  the  condition  of  a  shop  girl  as  far  as  a  planked 
steak  &c  could  do  so. 

Nearly  always  his  letters  would  be  written  in 
his  round,  regular  hand,  sometimes  in  pencil, 
more  often  with  ink,  and  generally  they  were 
signed  "Sydney  Porter";  but  there  is  one  in  the 
writer's  collection,  typed,  and  signed  merely 
with  the  initials  O.  H.,  that  is  perhaps  the 
brightest  gem  of  all.  It  was  written  under  the 
following  circumstances.  His  weekly  story  had 
been  delivered,  late  as  usual.  It  was  "The 
Guilty  Party,"  since  become  one  of  the  most 
celebrated  of  his  tales,  describing  an  episode  be 
fore  the  judgment  bar.  On  receiving  it,  I  wrote 
him  to  this  effect: 

There  was  once  a  celebrated  author  who  appeared  be 
fore  the  judgment  bar.  A  host  of  people  were  there  say 
ing  nice  things  about  him,  when  up  spoke  a  weary  editor 
and  said,  "He  never  kept  a  promise  in  his  life." 

In  reply  to  this  there  came  from  him  by  spe 
cial  messenger  a  note  which  read: 

Guilty,  m'lud. 

And  yet — 

Some  time  ago  a  magazine  editor  to  whom  I  had  prom 
ised  a  story  at  a  certain  minute  (and  strangely  enough 
didn't  get  there  with  it)  wrote  to  me:  "I  am  coming  down 
to-morrow  to  kick  you  thoroughly  with  a  pair  of  heavy- 
soled  shoes.  /  never  go  back  on  my  promises."  And  I 
lifted  up  my  voice  and  said  unto  him:  "It's  easy  to  keep 
promises  that  can  be  pulled  off  with  your  feet." 


jc  DISCIPLINING  O.  HENRY 

And  always,  looking  back  at  these  letters,  the 
sight  of  them  reviving  vividly  recollections  of 
their  writer,  a  gentle,  shy,  whimsical  soul,  who 
when  fame  came  stubbornly  refused  to  be  lion 
ized,  who  abhorred  a  dress  suit,  who  viewed 
with  alarm  any  gathering  that  included  more 
than  three  persons,  there  comes  the  memory  of 
his  imposing  funeral,  with  all  the  pall-bearers 
celebrities  of  the  metropolis,  but — so  the  story 
goes — half  of  them  men  who  never  had  even  laid 
eyes  on  the  writer  whose  body  they  bore  to  its 
resting  place. 

Always  it  has  seemed  to  me  that  this  was  a 
commentary,  but  a  commentary  on  what,  I 
never  have  been  able  to  decide.  It  may  have 
been  a  commentary  on  the  greatness  of  New 
York,  or  perhaps  on  our  funeral  customs.  I 
like  to  think  it  was  a  commentary  on  the  great 
ness  and  simplicity  of  O.  Henry. 

And  this  one  thing  more  I  know — of  all  the 
joys  of  authorship  that  have  come  to  me  since 
the  days  of  my  acquaintance  with  Sydney  Porter 
there  has  been  none  sweeter  nor  more  appre 
ciated  than  that  of  a  note  from  him  when  years 
ago  he  discovered  a  short  story  of  mine  in  an 
obscure  Southern  magazine. 

"I  wish  I'd  written  that  story,"  was  his  gal 
lant — and  I  have  always  tried  to  believe,  sincere 
— phrase. 

WILLIAM  JOHNSTON. 


STRICTLY  BUSINESS 


STRICTLY   BUSINESS 


STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

I  SUPPOSE  you  know  all  about  the  stage  and 
stage  people.  You've  been  touched  with  and 
by  actors,  and  you  read  the  newspaper  criticisms 
and  the  jokes  in  the  weeklies  about  the  Rialto 
and  the  chorus  girls  and  the  long-haired  trage 
dians.  And  I  suppose  that  a  condensed  list  of 
your  ideas  about  the  mysterious  stageland 
would  boil  down  to  something  like  this: 

Leading  ladies  have  five  husbands,  paste 
diamonds,  and  figures  no  better  than  your  own 
(madam)  if  they  weren't  padded.  Chorus 
girls  are  inseparable  from  peroxide,  Panhards, 
and  Pittsburg.  All  shows  walk  back  to  New 
York  on  tan  oxford  and  railroad  ties.  Irre 
proachable  actresses  reserve  the  comic-landlady 
part  for  their  mothers  on  Broadway  and  their 
step-aunts  on  the  road.  Kyrle  Bellew's  real 
name  is  Boyle  O'Kelley.  The  ravings  of  John 
McCullough  in  the  phonograph  were  stolen  from 
the  first  sale  of  the  Ellen  Terry  memoirs.  Joe 
Weber  is  funnier  than  E.  H.  Sothern;  but 
Henry  Miller  is  getting  older  than  he  was. 


2  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

All  theatrical  people  on  leaving  the  theatre 
at  night  drink  champagne  and  eat  lobsters  until 
noon  the  next  day.  After  all,  the  moving 
pictures  have  got  the  whole  bunch  pounded  to  a 
pulp. 

Now,  few  of  us  know  the  real  life  of  the  stage 
people.  If  we  did,  the  profession  might  be 
more  overcrowded  than  it  is.  We  look  askance 
at  the  players  with  an  eye  full  of  patronizing 
superiority — and  we  go  home  and  practise  all 
sorts  of  elocution  and  gestures  in  front  of  our 
looking  glasses. 

Latterly  there  has  been  much  talk  of  the  actor 
people  in  a  new  light.  It  seems  to  have  been 
divulged  that  instead  of  being  motoring  baccha 
nalians  and  diamond-hungry  loreleis  they  are 
businesslike  folk,  students  and  ascetics  with 
childer  and  homes  and  libraries,  owning  real 
estate,  and  conducting  their  private  affairs  in  as 
orderly  and  unsensational  a  manner  as  any  of  us 
good  citizens  who  are  bound  to  the  chariot 
wheels  of  the  gas,  rent,  coal,  ice,  and  wardmen. 

Whether  the  old  or  the  new  report  of  the  sock- 
and-buskiners  be  the  true  one  is  a  surmise  that 
has  no  place  here.  I  offer  you  merely  this  little 
story  of  two  strollers;  and  for  proof  of  its  truth 
I  can  show  you  only  the  dark  patch  above  the 
cast-iron  handle  of  the  stage-entrance  door  of 
Keetor's  old  vaudeville  theatre  made  there  by 
the  petulant  push  of  gloved  hands  too  impatient 
to  finger  the  clumsy  thumb-latch — and  where 
I  last  saw  Cherry  whisking  through  like  a 
swallow  into  her  nest,  on  time  to  the  minute,  as 
usual,  to  dress  for  her  act. 


STRICTLY  BUSINESS  3 

The  vaudeville  team  of  Hart  &  Cherry  was  an 
inspiration.  Bob  Hart  had  been  roaming 
through  the  Eastern  and  Western  circuits  for 
four  years  with  a  mixed-up  act  comprising  a 
monologue,  three  lightning  changes  with  songs, 
a  couple  of  imitations  of  celebrated  imitators, 
and  a  buck-and-wing  dance  that  had  drawn  a 
glance  of  approval  from  the  bass-viol  player  in 
more  than  one  house — than  which  no  performer 
ever  received  more  satisfactory  evidence  of 
good  work. 

The  greatest  treat  an  actor  can  have  is  to 
witness  the  pitiful  performance  with  which  all 
other  actors  desecrate  the  stage.  In  order  to 
give  himself  this  pleasure  he  will  often  forsake 
the  sunniest  Broadway  corner  between  Thirty- 
fourth  and  Forty-fourth  to  attend  a  matinee 
offering  by  his  less  gifted  brothers.  Once  during 
the  lifetime  of  a  minstrel  joke  one  comes  to  scoff 
and  remains  to  go  through  with  that  most 
difficult  exercise  of  Thespian  muscles — the 
audible  contact  of  the  palm  of  one  hand  against 
the  palm  of  the  other. 

One  afternoon  Bob  Hart  presented  his  sol 
vent,  serious,  well-known  vaudevillian  face  at 
the  box-office  window  of  a  rival  attraction  and 
got  his  d.  h.  coupon  for  an  orchestra  seat. 

A,  B,  C,  and  D  glowed  successively  on  the 
announcement  spaces  and  passed  into  oblivion, 
each  plunging  Mr.  Hart  deeper  into  gloom. 
Others  of  the  audience  shrieked,  squirmed, 
whistled  and  applauded;  but  Bob  Hart,  "All 
the  Mustard  and  a  Whole  Show  in  Himself," 
sat  with  his  face  as  long  and  his  hands  as  far 


apart  as  a  boy  holding  a  hank  of  yarn  for  his 
grandmother  to  wind  into  a  ball. 

But  when  H  came  on,  "The  Mustard"  sud 
denly  sat  up  straight.  H  was  the  happy  alpha 
betical  prognosticator  of  Winona  Cherry,  in 
Character  Songs  and  Impersonations.  There 
were  scarcely  more  than  two  bites  to  Cherry; 
but  she  delivered  the  merchandise  tied  with  a 
pink  cord  and  charged  to  the  old  man's  account. 
She  first  showed  you  a  deliciously  dewy  and 
ginghamy  country  girl  with  a  basket  of  property 
daisies  who  informed  you  ingenuously  that 
there  were  other  things  to  be  learned  at  the  old 
log  school-house  besides  cipherin'  and  nouns, 
especially  "When  the  Teach-er  Kept  Me  in." 
Vanishing,  with  a  quick  flirt  of  gingham  apron- 
strings,  she  .reappeared  in  considerably  less 
than  a  "trice"  as  a  fluffy  "Parisienne" — so 
near  does  Art  bring  the  old  red  mill  to  the 
Moulin  Rouge.  And  then— 

But  you  know  the  rest.  And  so  did  Bob 
Hart;  but  he  saw  somebody  else.  He  thought 
he  saw  that  Cherry  was  the  only  professional 
on  the  short  order  stage  that  he  had  seen  who 
seemed  exactly  to  fit  the  part  of  "Helen 
Grimes"  in  the  sketch  he  had  written  and  kept 
tucked  away  in  the  tray  of  his  trunk.  Of 
course  Bob  Hart,  as  well  as  every  other  normal 
actor,  grocer,  newspaper  man,  professor,  curb 
broker,  and  farmer,  has  a  play  tucked  (away 
somewhere.  They  tuck  'em  in  trays  of  trunks, 
trunks  of  trees,  desks,  haymows,  pigeonholes, 
inside  pockets,  safe-deposit  vaults,  handboxes, 
and  coal  cellars,  waiting  for  Mr.  Frohman  to 


STRICTLY  BUSINESS  5 

call.  They  belong  among  the  fifty-seven  dif 
ferent  kinds. 

But  Bob  Hart's  sketch  was  not  destined  to 
end  in  a  pickle  jar.  He  called  it  "Mice  Will 
Play."  He  had  kept  it  quiet  and  hidden  away 
ever  since  he  wrote  it,  waiting  to  find  a  partner 
who  fitted  his  conception  of  "Helen  Grimes." 
And  here  was  "Helen"  herself,  with  all  the 
innocent  abandon,  the  youth,  the  sprightliness, 
and  the  flawless  stage  art  that  his  critical 
taste  demanded. 

After  the  act  was  over  Hart  found  the 
manager  in  the  box  office,  and  got  Cherry's 
address.  At  five  the  next  afternoon  he  called 
at  the  musty  old  house  in  the  West  Forties  and 
sent  up  his  professional  card. 

By  daylight,  in  a  secular  shirtwaist  and  plain 
voile  skirt,  with  her  hair  curbed  and  her  Sister 
of  Charity  eyes,  Winona  Cherry  might  have 
been  playing  the  part  of  Prudence  Wise,  the 
deacon's  daughter,  in  the  great  (unwritten) 
New  England  drama  not  yet  entitled  anything. 

"I  know  your  act,  Mr.  Hart,"  she  said  after 
she  had  looked  over  his  card  carefully.  "What 
did  you  wish  to  see  me  about?" 

"I  saw  you  work  last  night,"  said  Hart. 
"I've  written  a  sketch  that  I've  been  saving 
up.  It's  for  two;  and  I  think  you  can  do  the 
other  part.  I  thought  I'd  see  you  about  it." 

"Come  in  the  parlor,"  said  Miss  Cherry. 
"I've  been  wishing  for  something  of  the  sort. 
I  think  I'd  like  to  act  instead  of  doing  turns." 

Bob  Hart  drew  his  cherished  "Mice  Will 
Play"  from  his  pocket,  and  read  it  to  her. 


6  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

"Read  it  again,  please,"  said  Miss  Cherry. 

And  then  she  pointed  out  to  him  clearly  how 
it  could  be  improved  by  introducing  a  messenger 
instead  of  a  telephone  call,  and  cutting  the 
dialogue  just  before  the  climax  while  they  were 
struggling  with  the  pistol,  and  by  completely 
changing  the  lines  and  business  of  Helen  Grimes 
at  the  point  where  her  jealousy  overcomes  her. 
Hart  yielded  to  all  her  strictures  without  argu 
ment.  She  had  at  once  put  her  finger  on  the 
sketch's  weaker  points.  That  was  her  woman's 
intuition  that  he  had  lacked.  At  the  end  of 
their  talk  Hart  was  willing  to  stake  the  judg 
ment,  experience,  and  savings  of  his  four  years 
of  vaudeville  that  "Mice  Will  Play"  would 
blossom  into  a  perennial  flower  in  the  garden 
of  the  circuits.  Miss  Cherry  was  slower  to 
decide.  After  many  puckerings  of  her  smooth 
young  brow  and  tappings  on  her  small,  white 
teeth  with  the  end  of  a  lead  pencil  she  gave  out 
her  dictum. 

"Mr.  Hart,"  said  she,  "I  believe  your  sketch 
is  going  to  win  out.  That  Grimes  part  fits  me 
like  a  shrinkable  flannel  after  its  first  trip  to  a 
handless  hand  laundry.  I  can  make  it  stand 
out  like  the  colonel  of  the  Forty-fourth  Regi 
ment  at  a  Little  Mothers'  Bazaar.  And  I've 
seen  you  work.  I  know  what  you  can  do  with 
the  other  part.  But  business  is  business.  How 
much  do  you  get  a  week  for  the  stunt  you  do 
now?" 

"Two  hundred,"  answered  Hart. 

"I  get  one  hundred  for  mine,"  said  Cherry. 
"That's  about  the  natural  discount  for  a  woman. 


STRICTLY  BUSINESS  7 

But  I  live  on  it  and  put  a  few  simoleons  every 
week  under  the  loose  brick  in  the  old  kitchen 
hearth.  The  stage  is  all  right.  I  love  it;  but 
there's  something  else  I  love  better — that's  a 
little  country  home,  some  day,  with  Plymouth 
Rock  chickens  and  six  ducks  wandering  around 
the  yard. 

"Now,  let  me  tell  you,  Mr.  Hart,  I  am 
STRICTLY  BUSINESS.  If  you  want  me  to  play 
the  opposite  part  in  your  sketch,  I'll  do  it.  And  I 
believe  we  can  make  it  go.  And  there's  some 
thing  else  I  want  to  say:  There's  no  nonsense 
in  my  make-up;  I'm  on  the  level,  and  I'm  on  the 
stage  for  what  it  pays  me,  just  as  other  girls 
work  in  stores  and  offices.  I'm  going  to  save 
my  money  to  keep  me  when  I'm  past  doing  my 
stunts.  No  Old  Ladies'  Home  or  Retreat  for 
Imprudent  Actresses  for  me. 

"If  you  want  to  make  this  a  business  partner 
ship,  Mr.  Hart,  with  all  nonsense  cut  out  of  it, 
I'm  in  on  it.  I  know  something  about  vaude 
ville  teams  in  general;  but  this  would  have  to  be 
one  in  particular.  I  want  you  to  know  that  I'm 
on  the  stage  for  what  I  can  cart  away  from  it 
every  pay-day  in  a  little  manila  envelope  with 
nicotine  stains  on  it,  where  the  cashier  has 
licked  the  flap.  It's  kind  of  a  hobby  of  mine  to 
want  to  cravenette  myself  for  plenty  of  rainy 
days  in  the  future.  I  want  you  to  know  just 
how  I  arru  I  don't  know  what  an  all-night 
restaurant  looks  like;  I  drink  only  weak  tea; 
I  never  spoke  to  a  man  at  a  stage  entrance  in 
my  life,  and  I've  got  money  in  five  savings 
banks." 


8  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

"Miss  Cherry,"  said  Bob  Hart  in  his  smooth, 
serious  tones,  "you're  in  on  your  own  terms. 
I've  got  'strictly  business'  pasted  in  my  hat  and 
stenciled  on  my  make-up  box.  When  I  dream 
of  nights  I  always  see  a  five-room  bungalow  on 
the  north  shore  of  Long  Island,  with  a  Jap 
cooking  clam  broth  and  duckling  in  the  kitchen, 
and  me  with  the  title  deeds  to  the  place  in  my 
pongee  coat  pocket,  swinging  in  a  hammock  on 
the  side  porch,  reading  Stanley's  'Explorations 
into  Africa/  And  nobody  else  around.  You 
never  was  interested  in  Africa,  was  you,  Miss 
Cherry?" 

"Not  any,""said  Cherry.  "What  I'm  going 
to  do  with  my  money  is  to  bank  it.  You  can 
get  four  per  cent,  on  deposits.  Even  at  the 
salary  I've  been  earning,  I've  figured  out  that  in 
ten  years  I'd  have  an  income  of  about  $50  a 
month  just  from  the  interest  alone.  Well,  I 
might  invest  some  of  the  principal  in  a  little 
business — say,  trimming  hats  or  a  beauty  parlor, 
and  make  more." 

"Well,"  said  Hart,  "you've  got  the  proper 
idea  all  right,  all  right,  anyhow.  There  are 
mighty  few  actors  that  amount  to  anything  at 
all  who  couldn't  fix  themselves  for  the  wet  days 
to  come  if  they'd  save  their  money  instead  of 
blowing  it.  I'm  glad  you've  got  the  correct 
business  idea  of  it,  Miss  Cherry.  I  think  the 
same  way;  and  I  believe  this  sketch  will  more 
than  double  what  both  of  us  earn  now  when  we 
get  it  shaped  up." 

The  subsequent  history  of  "Mice  W7ill  Play" 
is  the  history  of  all  successful  writings  for  the 


STRICTLY  BUSINESS  9 

stage.  Hart  &  Cherry  cut  it,  pieced  it,  re- 
modeled  it,  performed  surgical  operations  on  the 
dialogue  and  business,  changed  the  lines,  re 
stored  'em,  added  more,  cut  'em  out,  renamed 
it,  gave  it  back  the  old  name,  rewrote  it,  sub 
stituted  a  dagger  for  the  pistol,  restored  the 
pistol — put  the  sketch  through  all  the  known 
processes  of  condensation  and  improvement. 

They  rehearsed  it  by  the  old-fashioned  board 
ing-house  clock  in  the  rarely  used  parlor  until 
its  warning  click  at  five  minutes  to  the  hour 
would  occur  every  time  exactly  half  a  second  be 
fore  the  click  of  the  unloaded  revolver  that  Helen 
Grimes  used  in  rehearsing  the  thrilling  climax  of 
the  sketch. 

Yes,  that  was  a  thriller  and  a  piece  of  excel 
lent  work.  In  the  act  a  real  32-caliber  revolver 
was  used  loaded  with  a  real  cartridge.  Helen 
Grimes,  who  is  a  Western  girl  of  decidedly 
Buffalo  Billish  skill  and  daring,  is  tempestuously 
in  love  with  P  rank  Desmond,  the  private  secre 
tary  and  confidential  prospective  son-in-law  of 
her  father,  "  Arapahoe"  Grimes,  quarter-million- 
dollar  cattle  king,  owning  a  ranch  that,  judging 
by  the  scenery,  is  in  either  the  Bad  Lands  or 
Amagansett,  L.  I.  Desmond  (in  private  life 
Mr.  Bob  Hart)  wears  puttees  and  Meadow 
Brook  Hunt  riding  trousers,  and  gives  his  ad 
dress  as  New  York,  leaving  you  to  wonder  why 
he  comes  to  the  Bad  Lands  or  Amagansett  (as 
the  case  may  be)  and  at  the  same  time  to  con 
jecture  mildly  why  a  cattleman  should  want 
puttees  about  his  ranch  with  a  secretary  in 
'em. 


io  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

Well,  anyhow,  you  know  as  well  as  I  do  that 
we  all  like  that  kind  of  play,  whether  we  admit 
it  or  not — something  along  in  between  "Blue 
beard,  Jr.,"  and  "Cymbeline"  played  in  the 
Russian. 

There  were  only  two  parts  and  a  half  in  "Mice 
Will  Play."  Hart  and  Cherry  were  the  two, 
of  course;  and  the  half  was  a  minor  part  always 
played  by  a  stage  hand,  who  merely  came  in 
once  in  a  Tuxedo  coat  and  a  panic  to  announce 
that  the  house  was  surrounded  by  Indians,  and 
to  turn  down  the  gas  fire  in  the  grate  by  the 
manager's  orders. 

There  was  another  girl  in  the  sketch — a  Fifth 
Avenue  society  swelless — who  was  visiting  the 
ranch  and  who  had  sirened  Jack  Valentine  when 
he  was  a  wealthy  clubman  on  lower  Third 
Avenue  before  he  lost  his  money.  This  girl 
appeared  on  the  stage  only  in  the  photographic 
state — Jack  had  her  Sarony  stuck  up  on  the 
mantel  of  the  Amagan — of  the  Bad  Lands 
droring  room.  Helen  was  jealous,  of  course. 

And  now  for  the  thriller.  Old  "Arapahoe" 
Grimes  dies  of  angina  pectoris  one  night — so 
Helen  informs  us  in  a  stage-ferryboat  whisper 
over  the  footlights — while  only  his  secretary 
was  present.  And  that  same  day  he  was  known 
to  have  had  $647,000  in  cash  in  his  (ranch) 
library  just  received  for  the  sale  of  a  drove  of 
beeves  in  the  East  (that  accounts  for  the  prices 
we  pay  for  steak!).  The  cash  disappears  at  the 
same  time.  Jack  Valentine  was  the  only  person 
with  the  ranchman  when  he  made  his  (alleged) 
croak. 


STRICTLY  BUSINESS  11 

"Gawd  knows  I  love  him;  but  if  he  has  done 
this  deed—  '  you  sabe,  don't  you?  And  then 
there  are  some  mean  things  said  about  the 
Fifth  Avenue  girl — who  doesn't  come  on  the 
stage — and  can  we  blame  her,  with  the  vaude 
ville  trust  holding  down  prices  until  one  actually 
must  be  buttoned  in  the  back  by  a  call  boy, 
maids  cost  so  much  ? 

But,  wait.  Here's  the  climax.  Helen  Grimes, 
chaparralish  as  she  can  be,  is  goaded  beyond 
imprudence.  She  convinces  herself  that  Jack 
Valentine  is  not  only  a  falsetto,  but  a  financier. 
To  lose  at  one  fell  swoop  $647,000  and  a  lover 
in  riding  trousers  with  angles  in  the  sides  like 
the  variations  on  the  chart  of  a  typhoid-fever 
patient  is  enough  to  make  any  perfect  lady  mad. 
So,  then! 

They  stand  in  the  (ranch)  library,  which  is 
furnished  with  mounted  elk  heads  (didn't  the 
Elks  have  a  fish  fry  in  Amagansett  once?),  and 
the  denouement  begins.  J  know  of  no  more 
interesting  time  in  the  run  of  a  play  unless  it  be 
when  the  prologue  ends. 

Helen  thinks  Jack  has  taken  the  money. 
Who  else  was  there  to  take  it  ?  The  box-office 
manager  was  at  the  front  on  his  job;  the  orches 
tra  hadn't  left  their  seats;  and  no  man  could  get 
past  "Old  Jimmy,"  the  stage  door-man,  unless 
he  could  show  a  Skye  terrier  or  an  automobile 
as  a  guarantee  of  eligibility. 

Goaded  beyond  imprudence  (as  before  said), 
Helen  says  to  Jack  Valentine:  "Robber  and 
thief — and  worse  yet,  stealer  of  trusting  hearts, 
this  should  be  your  fate!" 


12  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

With  that  out  she  whips,  of  course,  the  trusty 
32-caliber. 

"But  I  will  be  merciful,"  goes  on  Helen. 
"You  shall  live — that  will  be  your  punishment. 
I  will  show  you  how  easily  I  could  have  sent  you 
to  the  death  that  you  deserve.  There  is  her 
picture  on  the  mantel.  I  will  send  through  her 
more  beautiful  face  the  bullet  that  should  have 
pierced  your  craven  heart." 

And  she  does  it.  And  there's  no  fake  blank 
cartridges  or  assistants  pulling  strings.  Helen 
fires.  The  bullet — the  actual  bullet — goes 
through  the  face  of  the  photograph — and  then 
strikes  the  hidden  spring  of  the  sliding  panel  in 
the  wall — and  lo!  the  panel  slides,  and  there  is 
the  missing  $647,000  in  convincing  stacks  of 
currency  and  bags  of  gold.  It's  great.  You 
know  how  it  is.  Cherry  practised  for  two 
months  at  a  target  on  the  roof  of  her  boarding 
house.  It  took  good  shooting.  In  the  sketch 
she  had  to  hit  a  brass  disk  only  three  inches  in 
diameter,  covered  by  wall  paper  in  the  panel; 
and  she  had  to  stand  in  exactly  the  same  spot 
every  night,  and  the  photo  had  to  be  in  exactly 
the  same  spot,  and  she  had  to  shoot  steady  and 
true  every  time. 

Of  course  old  "Arapahoe"  had  tucked  the 
funds  away  there  in  the  secret  place;  and,  of 
course,  Jack  hadn't  taken  anything  except  his 
salary  (which  really  might  have  come  under  the 
head  of  "obtaining  money  under";  but  that  is 
neither  here  nor  there);  and,  of  course,  the  New 
York  girl  was  really  engaged  to  a  concrete  house 
contractor  in  the  Bronx;  and,  necessarily,  Jack 


STRICTLY  BUSINESS  13 

and  Helen  ended  in  a  half-Nelson — and  there 
you  are. 

After  Hart  and  Cherry  had  gotten  "Mice  Will 
Play"  flawless,  they  had  a  try-out  at  a  vaude 
ville  house  that  accommodates.  The  sketch 
was  a  house  wrecker.  It  was  one  of  those  rare 
strokes  of  talent  that  inundates  a  theatre  from 
the  roof  down.  The  gallery  wept;  and  the 
orchestra  seats,  being  dressed  for  it,  swam  in 
tears. 

After  the  show  the  booking  agents  signed 
blank  checks  and  pressed  fountain  pens  upon 
Hart  and  Cherry.  Five  hundred  dollars  a  week 
was  what  it  panned  out. 

That  night  at  1 1 130  Bob  Hart  took  off  his  hat 
and  bade  Cherry  good-night  at  her  boarding- 
house  door. 

"Mr.  Hart,"  said  she  thoughtfully,  "come 
inside  just  a  few  minutes.  We've  got  our 
chance  now  to  make  good  and  to  make  money. 
What  we  want  to  do  is  to  cut  expenses  every 
cent  we  can,  and  save  all  we  can." 

"Right,"  said  Bob.  "It's  business  with  me. 
You've  got  your  scheme  for  banking  yours;  and 
I  dream  every  night  of  that  bungalow  with  the 
Jap  cook  and  nobody  around  to  raise  trouble. 
Anything  to  enlarge  the  net  receipts  will  engage 
my  attention." 

"Come  inside  just  a  few  minutes,"  repeated 
Cherry,  deeply  thoughtful.  "I've  got  a  propo 
sition  to  make  to  you  that  will  reduce  our 
expenses  a  lot  and  help  you  work  out  your  own 
future  and  help  me  to  work  out  mine — and  all  on 
business  principles." 


i4  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

"Mice  Will  Play"  had  a  tremendously 
successful  run  in  New  York  for  ten  weeks — 
rather  neat  for  a  vaudeville  sketch — and  then  it 
started  on  the  circuits.  Without  following  it, 
it  may  be  said  that  it  was  a  solid  drawing  card 
for  two  years  without  a  sign  of  abated  popu 
larity. 

Sam  Packard,  manager  of  one  of  Keetor's 
New  York  houses,  said  of  Hart  &  Cherry: 

"As  square  and  high-toned  a  little  team  as  ever 
came  over  the  circuit.  It's  a  pleasureto  read  their 
names  on  the  booking  list.  Quiet,  hard  work 
ers,  no  Johnny  and  Mabel  nonsense,  on  the 
job  to  the  minute,  straight  home  after  their 
act,  and  each  of  'em  as  gentlemanlike  as  a  lady. 
I  don't  expect  to  handle  any  attractions  that 
give  me  less  trouble  or  more  respect  for  the  pro 
fession." 

And  now,  after  so  much  cracking  of  a  nut 
shell,  here  is  the  kernel  of  the  story: 

At  the  end  of  its  second  season  "Mice  Will 
Play"  came  back  to  New  York  for  another  run 
at  the  roof  gardens  and  summer  theatres.  There 
was  never  any  trouble  in  booking  it  at  the  top- 
notch  price.  Bob  Hart  had  his  bungalow 
nearly  paid  for,  and  Cherry  had  so  many  savings 
deposit  bank  books  that  she  had  begun  to  buy 
sectional  bookcases  on  the  instalment  plan  to 
hold  them. 

I  tell  you  these  things  to  assure  you,  even  if 
you  can't  believe  it,  that  many,  very  many  of 
the  stage  people  are  workers  with  abiding 
ambitions — just  the  same  as  the  man  who 


STRICTLY  BUSINESS  15 

wants  to  be  president,  or  the  grocery  clerk  who 
wants  a  home  in  Flatbush,  or  a  lady  who  is 
anxious  to  flop  out  of  the  Count-pan  into  the 
Prince-fire.  And  I  hope  I  may  be  allowed  to 
say,  without  chipping  into  the  contribution 
basket,  that  they  often  move  in  a  mysterious 
way  their  wonders  to  perform. 

But,  listen. 

At  the  first  performance  of  "Mice  Will  Play  " 
in  New  York  at  the  new  Westphalia  (no  hams 
alluded  to)  Theatre,  Winona  Cherry  was 
nervous.  When  she  fired  at  the  photograph 
of  the  Eastern  beauty  on  the  mantel,  the  bullet, 
instead  of  penetrating  the  photo  and  then 
striking  the  disk,  went  into  the  lower  left  side 
of  Bob  Hart's  neck.  Not  expecting  to  get  it 
there,  Hart  collapsed  neatly,  while  Cherry 
fainted  in  a  most  artistic  manner. 

The  audience,  surmising  that  they  viewed  a 
comedy  instead  of  a  tragedy  in  which  the 
principals  were  married  or  reconciled,  applauded 
with  great  enjoyment.  The  Cool  Head,  who 
always  graces  such  occasions,  rang  the  curtain 
down,  and  two  platoons  of  scene  shifters 
respectively  and  more  or  less  respectfully  re 
moved  Hart  &  Cherry  from  the  stage.  The 
next  turn  went  on,  and  all  went  as  merry  as  an 
alimony  bell. 

The  stage  hands  found  a  young  doctor  at  the 
stage  entrance  who  was  waiting  for  a  patient 
with  a  decoction  of  Am.  B'ty  roses.  The  doctor 
examined  Hart  carefully  and  laughed  heartily. 

"No  headlines  for  you,  Old  Sport,"  was  his 


16  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

diagnosis.  "If  it  had  been  two  inches  to  the 
left  it  would  have  undermined  the  carotid 
artery  as  far  as  the  Red  Front  Drug  Store  in 
Flatbush  and  Back  Again.  As  it  is,  you  just 
get  the  property  man  to  bind  it  up  with  a 
flounce  torn  from  any  one  of  the  girls'  Val 
enciennes  and  go  home  and  get  it  dressed  by 
the  parlor-floor  practitioner  on  your  block,  and 
you'll  be  all  right.  Excuse  me;  I've  got  a 
serious  case  outside  to  look  after." 

After  that  Bob  Hart  looked  up  and  felt  better. 
And  then  to  where  he  lay  come  Vincente,  the 
Tramp  Juggler,  great  in  his  line.  Vincente,  a 
solemn  man  from  Brattleboro,  Vt.,  named  Sam 
Griggs  at  home,  sent  toys  and  maple  sugar  home 
to  two  small  daughters  from  every  town  he 
played.  Vincente  had  moved  on  the  same 
circuits  with  Hart  &  Cherry,  and  was  their 
peripatetic  friend. 

"Bob,"  said  Vincente  in  his  serious  way, 
"I'm  glad  it's  no  worse.  The  little  lady  is  wild 
about  you." 

"Who?"  asked  Hart. 

"Cherry,"  said  the  juggler.  "We  didn't 
know  how  bad  you  were  hurt;  and  we  kept  her 
away.  It's  taking  the  manager  and  three  girls 
to  hold  her." 

"It  was  an  accident,  of  course,"  said  Hart. 
"Cherry's  all  right.  She  wasn't  feeling  in  good 
trim  or  she  couldn't  have  done  it.  There's  no 
hard  feelings.  She's  strictly  business.  The 
doctor  says  I'll  be  on  the  job  again  in  three 
days.  Don't  let  her  worry." 

"Man,"  said  Sam  Griggs  severely,  puckering 


STRICTLY  BUSINESS  17 

his  old,  smooth,  lined  face,  "are  you  a  chess 
automaton  or  a  human  pincushion?  Cherry's 
crying  her  heart  out  for  you — calling  '  Bob,  Bob/ 
every  second,  with  them  holding  her  hands  and 
keeping  her' from  coming  to  you." 

"What's  the  matter  with  her?"  asked  Hart, 
with  wide-open  eyes.  "The  sketch'll  go  on 
again  in  three  days.  I'm  not  hurt  bad,  the 
doctor  says.  She  won't  lose  out  half  a  week's 
salary.  I  know  it  was  an  accident.  What's 
the  matter  with  her?" 

"You  seem  to  be  blind,  or  a  sort  of  a  fool," 
said  Vincente.  "The  girl  loves  you  and  is  al 
most  mad  about  your  hurt.  What's  the  matter 
with  you  ?  Is  she  nothing  to  you  ?  I  wish  you 
could  hear  her  call  you." 

"Loves  me?"  asked  Bob  Hart,  rising  from 
the  stack  of  scenery  on  which  he  lay.  "Cherry 
loves  me?  Why,  it's  impossible." 

"I  wish  you  could  see  her  and  hear  her,"  said 
Griggs. 

"But,  man,"  said  Bob  Hart,  sitting  up, 
"it's  impossible.  It's  impossible,  I  tell  you. 
I  never  dreamed  of  such  a  thing." 

"No  human  being,"  said  the  Tramp  Juggler, 
"could  mistake  it.  She's  wild  for  love  of  you. 
How  have  you  been  so  blind?" 

"But,  my  God,"  said  Bob  Hart,  rising  to  his 
feet,  "it's  too  late.  It's  too  late,  I  tell  you, 
Sam;  it's  too  late.  It  can't  be.  You  must  be 
wrong.  It's  impossible.  There's  some  mis 
take." 

"She's  crying  for  you,"  said  the  Tramp 
Juggler.  "  For  love  of  you  she's  fighting  three, 


1 8  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

and  calling  your  name  so  loud  they  don't  dare 
to  raise  the  curtain.     Wake  up,  man." 

"For  love  of  me?"  said  Bob  Hart  with  staring 
eyes.  "Don't  I  tell  you  it's  too  late?  It's 
too  late,  man.  Why,  Cherry  and  I  have  been 
married  two  years  /" 


II 

THE  GOLD  THAT  GLITTERED 

A  STORY  with  a  moral  appended  is  like  the 
bill  of  a  mosquito.  It  bores  you,  and  then 
injects  a  stingingdrop  to  irritate  your  conscience. 
Therefore  let  us  have  the  moral  first  and  be  done 
with  it.  All  is  not  gold  that  glitters,  but  it  is 
a  wise  child  that  keeps  the  stopper  in  his  bottle 
of  testing  acid. 

Where  Broadway  skirts  the  corner  of  the 
square  presided  over  by  George  the  Veracious  is 
the  Little  Rialto.  Here  stand  the  actors  of 
that  quarter,  and  this  is  their  shibboleth: 
"Nit/  says  I  to  Frohman,  'you  can't  touch 
me  for  a  kopeck  less  than  two-fifty  per,'  and 
out  I  walks." 

Westward  and  southward  from  the  Thespian 
glare  are  one  or  two  streets  where  a  Spanish- 
American  colony  has  huddled  for  a  little  tropical 
warmth  in  the  nipping  North.  The  centre  of 
life  in  this  precinct  is  "El  Refugio,"  a  cafe  and 
restaurant  that  caters  to  the  volatile  exiles  from 
the  South.  Up  from  Chili,  Bolivia,  Colombia, 
the  rolling  republics  of  Central  America  and  the 
ireful  islands  of  the  Western  Indies  flit  the 
cloaked  and  sombreroed  senores,  who  are 
scattered  like  burning  lava  by  the  politicar 

19 


20  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

eruptions  of  their  several  countries.  Hither 
they  come  to  lay  counterplots,  to  bide  their  time, 
to  solicit  funds,  to  enlist  filibustered,  to  smuggle 
out  arms  and  ammunitions,  to  play  the  game  at 
long  taw.  In  El  Refugio  they  find  the  atmos 
phere  in  which  they  thrive. 

In  the  restaurant  of  El  Refugio  are  served 
compounds  delightful  to  the  palate  of  the  man 
from  Capricorn  or  Cancer.  Altruism  must 
halt  the  story  thus  long.  Oh,  diner,  weary  of  the 
culinary  subterfuges  of  the  Gallic  chef,  hie  thee 
to  El  Refugio !  There  only  will  you  find  a  fish — 
bluefish,  shad,  or  pompano  from  the  Gulf — 
baked  after  the  Spanish  method.  Tomatoes 
give  it  color,  individuality,  and  soul;  chili 
Colorado  bestows  upon  it  zest,  originality,  and 
fervor;  unknown  herbs  furnish  piquancy  and 
mystery,  and — but  its  crowning  glory  deserves 
a  new  sentence.  Around  it,  above  it,  beneath 
it,  in  its  vicinity — but  never  in  it — hovers  an 
ethereal  aura,  an  effluvium  so  rarefied  and  deli 
cate  that  only  the  Society  for  Psychical  Re 
search  could  note  its  origin.  Do  not  say  that 
garlic  is  in  the  fish  at  El  Refugio.  It  is  not 
otherwise  than  as  if  the  spirit  of  Garlic,  flitting 
past,  has  wafted  one  kiss  that  lingers  in  the 
parsley-crowned  dish  as  haunting  as  those  kisses 
in  life,  "by  hopeless  fancy  feigned  on  lips  that 
are  for  others."  And  then,  when  Conchito, 
the  waiter,  brings  you  a  plate  of  brown  frijoles 
and  a  carafe  of  wine  that  has  never  stood  still 
between  Oporto  and  El  Refugio — ah,  Dios! 

One  day  a  Hamburg-American  liner  deposited 
upon  Pier  No.  55  Gen.  Perrico  Zimenes  Villa- 


THE  GOLD  THAT  GLITTERED  21 

blanca  Falcon,  a  passenger  from  Cartagena. 
The  General  was  between  a  claybank  and  a  bay 
in  complexion,  had  a  42-inch  waist  and  stood  5 
feet  4  with  his  Du  Barry  heels.  He  had  the 
mustache  of.  a  shooting-gallery  proprietor,  he 
wore  the  full  dress  of  a  Texas  congressman,  and 
had  the  important  aspect  of  an  uninstructed 
delegate. 

Gen.  Falcon  had  enough  English  under  his 
hat  to  enable  him  to  inquire  his  way  to  the 
street  in  which  El  Refugio  stood.  When  he 
reached  that  neighborhood  he  saw  a  sign  before 
a  respectable  red-brick  house  that  read,  "Hotel 
Espanol."  In  the  window  was  a  card  in 
Spanish,  "Aqui  se  habla  Espanol."  The 
General  entered,  sure  of  a  congenial  port. 

In  the  cozy  office  was  Mrs.  O'Brien,  the 
proprietress.  She  had  blonde — oh,  unimpeach- 
ably  blonde  hair.  For  the  rest  she  was  amia 
bility,  and  ran  largely  to  inches  around.  Gen. 
Falcon  brushed  the  floor  with  his  broad- 
brimmed  hat,  and  emitted  a  quantity  of  Spanish, 
the  syllables  sounding  like  firecrackers  gently 
popping  their  way  down  the  string  of  a  bunch. 

"Spanish  or  Dago?"  asked  Mrs.  O'Brien, 
pleasantly. 

"I  am  a  Colombian,  madam,"  said  the 
General  proudly.  "I  speak  the  Spanish.  The 
advisement  in  your  window  say  the  Spanish  he 
is  spoken  here.  How  is  that?" 

"Well,  you've  been  speaking  it,  ain't  your" 
said  the  madam.  "I'm  sure  I  can't." 

At  the  Hotel  Espanol  General  Falcon  engaged 
rooms  and  established  himself.  At  dusk  he 


22  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

sauntered  out  upon  the  streets  to  view  the 
wonders  of  this  roaring  city  of  the  North.  As 
he  walked  he  thought  of  the  wonderful  golden 
hair  of  Mme.  O'Brien.  "It  is  here,"  said  the 
General  to  himself,  no  doubt  in  his  own  lan 
guage,  "that  one  shall  find  the  most  beautiful 
senoras  in  the  world.  I  have  not  in  my  Colom 
bia  viewed  among  our  beauties  one  so  fair. 
But  no!  It  is  not  for  the  General  Falcon  to 
think  of  beauty.  It  is  my  country  that  claims 
my  devotion." 

At  the  corner  of  Broadway  and  the  Little 
Rialto  the  General  became  involved.  The 
street  cars  bewildered  him,  and  the  fender  of 
one  upset  him  against  a  pushcart  laden  with 
oranges.  A  cab  driver  missed  him  an  inch  with 
a  hub,  and  poured  barbarous  execrations  upon 
his  head.  He  scrambled  to  the  sidewalk  and 
skipped  again  in  terror  when  the  whistle  of  a 
peanut-roaster  puffed  a  hot  scream  into  his  ear. 
"Valgame  Dios!  What  devil's  city  is  this?" 

As  the  General  fluttered  out  of  the  streamers 
of  passers  like  a  wounded  snipe  he  was  marked 
simultaneously  as  game  by  two  hunters.  One 
was  "Bully"  McGuire,  whose  system  of  sport 
required  the  use  of  a  strong  arm  and  the  misuse 
of  an  eight-inch  piece  of  lead  pipe.  The  other 
Nimrod  of  the  asphalt  was  "Spider"  Kelley,  a 
sportsman  with  more  refined  methods. 

In  pouncing  upon  their  self-evident  prey,  Mr. 
Kelley  was  a  shade  the  quicker.  His  elbow 
fended  accurately  the  onslaught  of  Mr.  McGuire. 

"G'wan!"  he  commanded  harshly.     "I  saw 


THE  GOLD  THAT  GLITTERED  23 

it  first."  McGuire  slunk  away,  awed  by 
superior  intelligence. 

"Pardon  me,"  said  Mr.  Kelley,  to  the 
General,  "but  you  got  balled  up  in  the  shuffle, 
didn't  you?  •  Let  me  assist  you."  He  picked 
up  the  General's  hat  and  brushed  the  dust  from 
it. 

The  ways  of  Mr.  Kelley  could  not  but  suc 
ceed.  The  General,  bewildered  and  dismayed 
by  the  resounding  streets,  welcomed  his  de 
liverer  as  a  caballero  with  a  most  disinterested 
heart. 

"I  have  a  desire,"  said  the  General,  "to  re 
turn  to  the  hotel  of  O'Brien,  in  which  I  am  stop. 
Caramba!  senor,  there  is  a  loudness  and  rapid- 
ness  of  going  and  coming  in  the  city  of  this 
Nueva  York." 

Mr.  Kelley 's  politeness  would  not  suffer  the 
distinguished  Colombian  to  brave  the  dangers 
of  the  return  unaccompanied.  At  the  door  of 
the  Hotel  Espanol  they  paused.  A  little  lower 
down  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  street  shone 
the  modest  illuminated  sign  of  El  Refugio. 
Mr.  Kelley,  to  whom  few  streets  were  unfamiliar, 
knew  the  place  exteriorly  as  a  "Dago  joint." 
All  foreigners  Mr.  Kelley  classed  under  the  two 
heads  of  "Dagoes"  and  Frenchmen.  He  pro 
posed  to  the  General  that  they  repair  thither 
and  substantiate  their  acquaintance  with  a 
liquid  foundation. 

An  hour  later  found  General  Falcon  and 
Mr.  Kelley  seated  at  a  table  in  the  conspirator's 
corner  of  El  Refugio.  Bottles  and  glasses  were 


24  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

between  them.  For  the  tenth  time  the  General 
confided  the  secret  of  his  mission  to  the  Estados 
Unidos.  He  was  here,  he  declared,  to  purchase 
arms — 2,000  stands  of  Winchester  rifles — for 
the  Colombian  revolutionists.  He  had  drafts  in 
his  pocket  drawn  by  the  Cartagena  Bank  on  its 
New  York  correspondent  for  $25,000.  At 
other  tables  other  revolutionists  were  shouting 
their  political  secrets  to  their  fellow-plotters; 
but  none  was  as  loud  as  the  General.  He 
pounded  the  table;  he  hallooed  for  some  wine; 
he  roared  to  his  friend  that  his  errand  was  a 
secret  one,  and  not  to  be  hinted  at  to  a  living 
soul.  Mr.  Kelley  himself  was  stirred  to  sympa 
thetic  enthusiasm.  He  grasped  the  General's 
hand  across  the  table, 

"Monseer,"  he  said,  earnestly,  "I  don't 
know  where  this  country  of  yours  is,  but  I'm  for 
it.  I  guess  it  must  be  a  branch  of  the  United 
States,  though,  for  the  poetry  guys  and  the 
schoolmarms  call  us  Columbia,  too,  sometimes. 
It's  a  lucky  thing  for  you  that  you  butted  into 
me  to-night.  I'm  the  only  man  in  New  York 
that  can  get  this  gun  deal  through  for  you. 
The  Secretary  of  War  of  the  United  States  is 
me  best  friend.  He's  in  the  city  now,  and  I'll 
see  him  for  you  to-morrow.  In  the  mean 
time,  monseer,  you  keep  them  drafts  tight  in 
your  inside  pocket.  I'll  call  for  you  to-morrow, 
and  take  you  to  see  him.  Say!  that  ain't  the 
District  of  Columbia  you're  talking  about,  is 
it?"  concluded  Mr.  Kelley,  with  a  sudden 
qualm.  "You  can't  capture  that  with  110 
2,000  guns — it's  been  tried  with  more." 


THE  GOLD  THAT  GLITTERED  25 

"No,  no,  no!"  exclaimed  the  General.  "It 
is  the  Republic  of  Colombia — it  is  a  g-r-reat 
republic  on  the  top  side  of  America  of  the  South. 
Yes.  Yes." 

"All  right/'  said  Mr.  Kelley,  reassured. 
"Now  suppose  we  trek  along  home  and  go  by-by. 
I'll  write  to  the  Secretary  to-night  and  make  a 
date  with  him.  It's  a  ticklish  job  to  get  guns 
out  of  New  York.  McClusky  himself  can't 
do  it." 

They  parted  at  the  door  of  the  Hotel  Espanol. 
The  General  rolled  his  eyes  at  the  moon  and 
sighed. 

"It  is  a  great  country,  your  Nueva  York,"  he 
said.  "Truly  the  cars  in  the  streets  devastate 
one,  and  the  engine  that  cooks  the  nuts  terribly 
makes  a  squeak  in  the  ear.  But,  ah,  Senor 
Kelley — the  senoras  with  hair  of  much  goldness, 
and  admirable  fatness — they  are  magnificas! 
Muy  magnificas!" 

Kelley  went  to  the  nearest  telephone  booth 
and  called  up  McCrary's  cafe,  far  up  on  Broad 
way.  He  asked  for  Jimmy  Dunn. 

"Is  that  Jimmy  Dunn?"  asked  Kelley.  f 

"Yes,"  came  the  answer. 

"You're  a  liar,"  sang  back  Kelley,  joyfully. 
"You're  the  Secretary  of  War.  Wait  there  till 
I  come  up.  I've  got  the  finest  thing  down  here 
in  the  way  of  a  fish  you  ever  baited  for.  It's  a 
Colorado-maduro,  with  a  gold  band  around  it 
and  free  coupons  enough  to  buy  a  red  hall  lamp 
and  a  statuette  of  Psyche  rubbering  in  the  brook. 
I'll  be  up  on  the  next  car." 

Jimmy  Dunn  was  an  A.  M.  of  Crookdom.     He 


26  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

was  an  artist  in  the  confidence  line.  He  never 
saw  a  bludgeon  in  his  life;  and  he  scorned  knock 
out  drops.  In  fact,  he  would  have  set  nothing 
before  an  intended  victim  but  the  purest  of 
drinks,  if  it  had  been  possible  to  procure  such 
a  thing  in  New  York.  It  was  the  ambition  of 
"Spider"  Kelley  to  elevate  himself  into  Jimmy's 
class. 

These  two  gentlemen  held  a  conference  that 
night  at  McCrary's.  Kelley  explained. 

"He's  as  easy  as  a  gum  shoe.  He's  from  the 
Island  of  Colombia,  where  there's  a  strike,  or  a 
feud,  or  something  going  on,  and  they've  sent 
him  up  here  to  buy  2,000  Winchesters  to  arbi 
trate  the  thing  with.  He  showed  me  two 
drafts  for  $10,000  each,  and  one  for  $5,000  on  a 
bank  here.  'S  truth,  Jimmy,  I  felt  real  mad 
with  him  because  he  didn't  have  it  in  thousand- 
dollar  bills,  and  hand  it  to  me  on  a  silver  waiter. 
Now,  we've  got  to  wait  till  he  goes  to  the  bank 
and  gets  the  money  for  us.'* 

They  talked  it  over  for  two  hours,  and  then 
Dunn  said:  "Bring  him  to  No. — Broadway,  at 
four  o'clock  to-morrow  afternoon." 

In  due  time  Kelley  called  at  the  Hotel 
Espanol  for  the  General.  He  found  that  wily 
warrior  engaged  in  delectable  conversation  with 
Mrs.  O'Brien. 

"The  Secretary  of  War  is  waitin'  for  us,'* 
said  Kelley. 

The  General  tore  himself  away  with  an  effort. 

"Ay,  senor,"  he  said,  with  a  sigh,  "duty 
makes  a  call.  But,  senor,  the  senoras  of  your 
Estados  Unidos — how  beauties!  For  exemplifi- 


THE  GOLD  THAT  GLITTERED  27 

cation,  take  you  la  Madame  O'Brien — que 
magnifica!  She  is  one  goddess — one  Juno — • 
what  you  call  one  ox-eyed  Juno." 

Now  Mr.  Kelley  was  a  wit;  and  better  men 
have  been  shriveled  by  the  fire  of  their  own 
imagination. 

"Sure!"  he  said  with  a  grin;  "but  you  mean 
a  peroxide  Juno,  don't  you?" 

Mrs.  O'Brien  heard,  and  lifted  an  auriferous 
head.  Her  businesslike  eye  rested  for  an  instant 
upon  the  disappearing  form  of  Mr.  Kelley. 
Except  in  street  cars  one  should  never  be  un 
necessarily  rude  to  a  lady. 

When  the  gallant  Colombian  and  his  escort 
arrived  at  the  Broadway  address,  they  were  held 
in  an  anteroom  for  half  an  hour,  and  then  ad 
mitted  into  a  well-equipped  office  where  a 
distinguished  looking  man,  with  a  smooth  face, 
wrote  at  a  desk.  General  Falcon  was  presented 
to  the  Secretary  of  War  of  the  United  States, 
and  his  mission  made  known  by  his  old  friend, 
Mr.  Kelley. 

*  "Ah — Colombia!"  said  the  Secretary,  signifi 
cantly,  when  he  was  made  to  understand;  "I'm 
afraid  there  will  be  a  little  difficulty  in  that  case. 
The  President  and  I  differ  in  our  sympathies 
there.  He  prefers  the  established  government, 
while  I —  The  Secretary  gave  the  General  a 

mysterious  but  encouraging  smile.  "You,  of 
course,  know,  General  Falcon,  that  since  the 
Tammany  war,  an  act  of  Congress  has  been 
passed  requiring  all  manufactured  arms  and 
ammunition  exported  from  this  country  to  pass 
through  the  War  Department.  Now,  if  I  can 


28  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

do  anything  for  you  I  will  be  glad  to  do  so  to 
oblige  my  old  friend,  Mr.  Kelley.  But  it  must 
be  in  absolute  secrecy,  as  the  President,  as  I 
have  said,  does  not  regard  favorably  the  efforts 
of  your  revolutionary  party  in  Colombia.  I 
will  have  my  orderly  bring  a  list  of  the  available 
arms  now  in  the  warehouse." 

The  Secretary  struck  a  bell,  and  an  orderly 
with  the  letters  A.  D.  T.  on  his  cap  stepped 
promptly  into  the  room. 

"Bring  me  Schedule  B  of  the  small  arms 
inventory,"  said  the  Secretary. 

The  orderly  quickly  returned  with  a  printed 
paper.  The  Secretary  studied  it  closely. 

"I  find,"  he  said,  "that  in  Warehouse  9,  of 
Government  stores,  there  is  a  shipment  of  2,000 
stands  of  Winchester  rifles  that  were  ordered  by 
the  Sultan  of  Morocco,  who  forgot  to  send  the 
cash  with  his  order.  Our  rule  is  that  legal- 
tender  money  must  be  paid  down  at  the  time 
of  purchase.  My  dear  Kelley,  your  friend, 
General  Falcon,  shall  have  this  lot  of  arms,  if  he 
desires  it,  at  the  manufacturer's  price.  And 
you  will  forgive  me,  I  am  sure,  if  I  curtail  our 
interview.  I  am  expecting  the  Japanese  Minis 
ter  and  Charles  Murphy  every  moment!" 

As  one  result  of  this  interview,  the  General 
was  deeply  grateful  to  his  esteemed  friend,  Mr. 
Kelley.  As  another,  the  nimble  Secretary  of 
War  was  extremely  busy  during  the  next  two 
days  buying  empty  rifle  cases  and  filling  them 
with  bricks,  which  were  then  stored  in  a  ware 
house  rented  for  that  purpose.  As  still  another, 
when  the  General  returned  to  the  Hotel  Es- 


THE  GOLD  THAT  GLITTERED  29 

panol,  Mrs.  O'Brien  went  up  to  him,  plucked  a 
thread  from  his  lapel,  and  said: 

"Say,  senor,  I  don't  want  to  'butt  in,'  but 
what  does  that  monkey-faced,  cat-eyed,  rubber 
necked  tin  horn  tough  want  with  you?" 

"Sangre  de  mi  vida!"  exclaimed  the  General. 
''Impossible  it  is  that  you  speak  of  my  good 
friend,  Senor  Kelley." 

"Come  into  the  summer  garden,"  said  Mrs. 
O'Brien.  "I  want  to  have  a  talk  with  you." 

Let  us  suppose  that  an  hour  has  elapsed. 

"And  you  say,"  said  the  General,  "that  for 
the  sum  of  $18,000  can  be  purchased  the  furnish- 
ment  of  the  house  and  the  lease  of  one  year  with 
this  garden  so  lovely — so  resembling  unto  the 
patios  of  my  cara  Colombia?" 

"And  dirt  cheap  at  that,"  sighed  the  lady. 

"Ah,  Dios!"  breathed  General  Falcon. 
"What  to  me  is  war  and  politics?  This  spot  is 
one  paradise.  My  country  it  have  other  brave 
heroes  to  continue  the  righting.  What  to  me 
should  be  glory  and  the  shooting  of  mans  ?  Ah ! 
no.  It  is  here  I  have  found  one  angel.  Let  us 
buy  the  Hotel  Espanol  and  you  shall  be  mine, 
and  the  money  shall  not  be  waste  on  guns." 

Mrs.  O'Brien  rested  her  blond  pompadour 
against  the  shoulder  of  the  Colombian  pa 
triot. 

"Oh,  senor,"  she  sighed,  happily,  "ain't  you 
terrible!" 

Two  days  later  was  the  time  appointed  for 
the  delivery  of  the  arms  to  the  General.  The 
boxes  of  supposed  rifles  were  stacked  in  the 
rented  warehouse,  and  the  Secretary  of  War  sat 


30  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

upon  them,  waiting  for  his   friend   Kelley  to 
fetch  the  victim. 

Mr.  Kelley  hurried,  at  the  hour,  to  the  Hotel 
Espanol.  He  found  the  General  behind  the  desk 
adding  up  accounts. 

"I  have  decide,"  said  the  General,  "to  buy 
not  guns.  I  have  to-day  buy  the  insides  of  this 
hotel,  and  there  shall  be  marrying  of  the  General 
Perrico  Ximenes  Villablanca  Falcon  with  la 
Madame  O'Brien." 

Mr.  Kelley  almost  strangled. 

"Say,  you  old  bald-headed  bottle  of  shoe 
polish,"  he  spluttered,  "you're  a  swindler — 
that's  what  you  are!  You've  bought  a  boarding 
house  with  money  belonging  to  your  infernal 
country,  wherever  it  is." 

"Ah,"  said  the  General,  footing  up  a  column, 
"that  is  what  you  call  politics.  War  and 
revolution  they  are  not  nice.  Yes.  It  is  not 
best  that  one  shall  always  follow  Minerva. 
No.  It  is  of  quite  desirable  to  keep  hotels  and 
be  with  that  Juno — that  ox-eyed  Juno.  Ah! 
what  hair  of  the  gold  it  is  that  she  have!" 
,  Mr.  Kelley  choked  again. 

"Ah,  Senor  Kelley!"  said  the  General, 
feelingly  and  finally,  "is  it  that  you  have  never 
eaten  of  the  corned  beef  hash  that  Madame 
O'Brien  she  make?" 


BABES  IN  THE  JUNGLE 

MONTAGUE  SILVER,  the  finest  street  man 
and  art  grafter  in  the  West,  says  to  me  once  in 
Little  Rock:  "If  you  ever  lose  your  mind,  Billy, 
and  get  too  old  to  do  honest  swindling  among 
grown  men,  go  to  New  York.  In  the  West 
a  sucker  is  born  every  minute;  but  in  New  York 
they  appear  in  chunks  of  roe — you  can't  count 
'em!" 

Two  years  afterward  I  found  that  I  couldn't 
remember  the  names  of  the  Russian  admirals, 
and  I  noticed  some  gray  hairs  over  my  left  ear; 
so  I  knew  the  time  had  arrived  for  me  to  take 
Silver's  advice. 

I  struck  New  York  about  noon  one  day,  and 
took  a  walk  up  Broadway.  And  I  run  against 
Silver  himself,  all  encompassed  up  in  a  spacious 
kind  of  haberdashery,  leaning  against  a  hotel 
and  rubbing  the  half-moons  on  his  nails  with  a 
silk  handkerchief. 

"Paresis  or  superannuated?"  I  asks  him. 

"Hello,  Billy,"  says  Silver;  "I'm  glad  to  see 
you.  Yes,  it  seemed  to  me  that  the  West  was 
accumulating  a  little  too^much  wiseness.  I've 
been  saving  New  York  for  dessert.  I  know  it's 
a  low-down  trick  to  take  things  from  these 

31 


32  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

people.  They  only  know  this  and  that  and  pass 
to  and  fro  and  think  ever  and  anon.  I'd  hate 
for  my  mother  to  know  I  was  skinning  these 
weak-minded  ones.  She  raised  me  better." 

"Is  there  a  crush  already  in  the  waiting  rooms 
of  the  old  doctor  that  does  skin  grafting?"  I 
asks. 

"Well,  no,"  says  Silver;  "you  needn't  back 
Epidermis  to  win  to-day.  I've  only  been  here  a 
month.  But  I'm  ready  to  begin;  and  the 
members  of  Willie  Manhattan's  Sunday  School 
class,  each  of  whom  has  volunteered  to  con 
tribute  a  portion  of  cuticle  toward  this  re 
habilitation,  may  as  well  send  their  photos  to 
the  Evening  Daily. 

"I've  been  studying  the  town,"  says  Silver, 
"and  reading  the  papers  every  day,  and  I  know 
it  as  well  as  the  cat  in  the  City  Hall  knows  an 
O'Sullivan.  People  here  lie  down  on  the  floor 
and  scream  and  kick  when  you  are  the  least  bit 
slow  about  taking  money  from  them.  Come 
up  in  my  room  and  I'll  tell  you.  We'll  work 
the  town  together,  Billy,  for  the  sake  of  old 
times." 

Silver  takes  me  up  in  a  hotel.  He  has  a 
quantity  of  irrelevant  objects  lying  about. 

"There's  more  ways  of  getting  money  from 
these  metropolitan  hayseeds,"  says  Silver, 
"than  there  is  of  cooking  rice  in  Charleston, 
S.  C.  They'll  bite  at  anything.  The  brains 
of  most  of  'em  commute.  The  wiser  they  are 
in  intelligence  the  less  perception  of  cognizance 
they  have.  Why,  didn't  a  man  the  other  day 
sell  J.  P.  Morgan  an  oil  portrait  of  Rockefeller, 


BABES  IN  THE  JUNGLE  33 

Jr.,  for  Andrea  del  Sarto's  celebrated  painting 
of  the  young  Saint  John! 

"You  see  that  bundle  of  printed  stuff  in  the 
corner,  Billy?  That's  gold  mining  stock.  I 
started  out  ©ne  day  to  sell  that,  but  I  quit  it  in 
two  hours.  Why?  Got  arrested  for  blocking 
the  street.  People  fought  to  buy  it.  I  sold 
the  policeman  a  block  of  it  on  the  way  to  the 
station-house,  and  then  I  took  it  off  the  market. 
I  don't  want  people  to  give  me  their  money.  I 
want  some  little  consideration  connected  with 
the  transaction  to  keep  my  pride  from  being 
hurt.  I  want  'em  to  guess  the  missing  letter 
in  Chic — go,  or  draw  to  a  pair  of  nines  before 
they  pay  me  a  cent  of  money. 

"Now  there's  another  little  scheme  that 
worked  so  easy  I  had  to  quit  it.  You  see  that 
bottle  of  blue  ink  on  the  table?  I  tattooed  an 
anchor  on  the  back  of  my  hand  and  went  to  a 
bank  and  told  'em  I  was  Admiral  Dewey's 
nephew.  They  offered  to  cash  my  draft  on 
him  for  a  thousand,  but  I  didn't  know  my 
uncle's  first  name.  It  shows,  though,  what  an 
easy  town  it  is.  As  for  burglars,  they  won't 
go  in  a  house  now  unless  there's  a  hot  supper 
ready  and  a  few  college  students  to  wait  on  'em. 
They're  slugging  citizens  all  over  the  upper  part 
of  the  city  and  I  guess,  taking  the  town  from 
end  to  end,  it's  a  plain  case  of  assault  and 
Battery." 

"Monty,"  says  I,  when  Silver  had  slacked 
up,  "you  may  have  Manhattan  correctly  dis 
criminated  in  your  perorative,  but  I  doubt  it. 
I've  only  been  in  town  two  hours,  but  it  don't 


34  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

dawn  upon  me  that  it's  ours  with  a  cherry  in 
it.  There  ain't  enough  rus  in  urbe  about  it  to 
suit  me.  I'd  be  a  good  deal  much  better 
satisfied  if  the  citizens  had  a  straw  or  more  in 
their  hair,  and  run  more  to  velveteen  vests  and 
buckeye  watch  charms.  They  don't  look  easy 
to  me." 

';  You've  got  it,  Billy,"  says^  Silver.  "All 
emigrants  have  it.  New  York's  bigger  than 
Little  Rock  or  Europe,  and  it  frightens  a 
foreigner.  You'll  be  all  right.  I  tell  you  I  feel 
like  slapping  the  people  here  because  they  don't 
send  me  all  their  money  in  laundry  baskets, 
'with  germicide  sprinkled  over  it.  I  hate  to  go 
down  on  the  street  to  get  it.  Who  wears  the 
diamonds  in  this  town?  Why,  Winnie,  the 
Wiretapper's  wife,  and  Bella,  the  Buncosteerer's 
bride.  New  Yorkers  can  be  worked  easier  than 
a  blue  rose  on  a  tidy.  The  only  thing  that 
bothers  me  is  I  know  I'll  break  the  cigars  in  my 
vest  pocket  when  I  get  my  clothes  all  full  of 
twenties." 

"I  hope  you  are  right,  Monty,"  says  I;  "but 
I  wish  all  the  same  I  had  been  satisfied  with  a 
small  business  in  Little  Rock.  The  crop  of 
farmers  is  never  so  short  out  there  but  what  you 
can  get  a  few  of  'em  to  sign  a  petition  for  a  new 
post  office  that  you  can  discount  for  $200  at 
the  county  bank.  The  people  here  appear  to 
possess  instincts  of  self-preservation  and  illiber- 
ality.  I  fear  me  that  we  are  not  cultured  enough 
to  tackle  this  game." 

"Don't  worry,"  says  Silver.  "I've  got  this 
Jayville-near-Tarrytown  correctly  estimated  as 


BABES  IN  THE  JUNGLE  35 

sure  as  North  River  is  the  Hudson  and  East 
River  ain't  a  river.  Why,  there  are  people 
living  in  four  blocks  of  Broadway  who  never 
saw  any  kind  of  a  building  except  a  skyscraper 
in  their  lives!  A  good,  live  hustling  Western 
man  ought  ito  get  conspicuous  enough  here  in 
side  of  three  months  to  incur  either  Jerome's 
clemency  or  Lawson's  displeasure." 

"Hyperbole  aside,"  says  I,  "do  you  know  of 
any  immediate  system  of  buncoing  the  com 
munity  out  of  a  dollar  or  two  except  by  applying 
to  the  Salvation  Army  or  having  a  fit  on  Miss 
Helen  Gould's  doorsteps?" 

"Dozens  of  'em,"  says  Silver.  "How  mucn 
capital  have  you  got,  Billy?" 

"A  thousand,"  I  told  him. 

"I've  got  $1,200,"  says  he.  "We'll  pool  and 
do  a  big  piece  of  business.  There's  so  many 
ways  we  can  make  a  million  that  I  don't  know 
how  to  begin." 

The  next  morning  Silver  meets  me  at  the 
hotel  and  he  is  all  sonorous  and  stirred  with  a 
kind  of  silent  joy. 

"We're  to  meet  J.  P.  Morgan  this  afternoon," 
says  he.  "A  man  I  know  in  the  hotel  wants  to 
introduce  us.  He's  a  friend  of  his.  He  says 
he  likes  to  meet  people  from  the  West." 

"That  sounds  nice  and  plausible,"  says  I. 
"I'd  like  to  know  Mr.  Morgan." 

"It  won't  hurt  us  a  bit,"  says  Silver,  "to  get 
acquainted  with  a  few  finance  kings.  I  kind 
of  like  the  social  way  New  York  has  witt 
strangers." 

The  man  Silver  knew  was  named  Klein.    At 


36  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

three  o'clock  Klein  brought  his  Wall  Street 
friend  to  see  us  in  Silver's  room.  "Mr.  Morgan" 
looked  some  like  his  pictures,  and  he  had  a 
Turkish  towel  wrapped  around  his  left  foot,  and 
he  walked  with  a  cane. 

"Mr.  Silver  and  Mr.  Pescud,  says  Klein. 
"It  sounds  superfluous,"  says  he,  "to  mention 
the  name  of  the  greatest  financial— 

"Cut  it  out,  Klein,"  says  Mr.  Morgan.  "I'm 
glad  to  know  you  gents;  I  take  great  interest 
in  the  West.  Klein  tells  me  you're  from  Little 
Rock.  I  think  I've  a  railroad  or  two  out  there 
somewhere.  If  either  of  you  guys  would  like 
to  deal  a  hand  or  two  of  stud  poker  I— 

"Now,  Pierpont,"  cuts  in  Klein,  "you  for- 
get!" 

"Excuse  me,  gents!"  says  Morgan;  "since 
I've  had  the  gout  so  bad  I  sometimes  play  a 
social  game  of  cards  at  my  house.  Neither  of 
you  never  knew  One-eyed  Peters,  did  you, 
while  you  was  around  Little  Rock?  He  lived 
in  Seattle,  New  Mexico." 

Before  we  could  answer,  Mr.  Morgan  ham 
mers  on  the  floor  with  his  cane  and  begins  to 
walk  up  and  down,  swearing  in  a  loud  tone  of 
voice. 

"They  have  been  pounding  your  stocks  to 
day  on  the  Street,  Pierpont?"  asks  Klein, 
smiling. 

"Stocks!  No!"  roars  Mr.  Morgan.  "It's 
that  picture  I  sent  an  agent  to  Europe  to  buy. 
I  just  thought  about  it.  He  cabled  me  to-day 
that  it  ain't  to  be  found  in  all  Italy.  I'd  pay 
$50,000  to-morrow  for  that  picture — yes, 


BABES  IN  THE  JUNGLE  37 

$75,000.  I  give  the  agent  a  la  carte  in  purchas 
ing  it.  I  cannot  understand  why  the  art  gal 
leries  will  allow  a  De  Vinchy  to — 

"Why,  Mr.  Morgan,"  says  Klein;  "I  thought 
you  owned  all  of  the  De  Vinchy  paintings." 

"What  is'  the  picture  like,  Mr.  Morgan?" 
asks  Silver.  "It  must  be  as  big  as  the  side  of 
the  Flatiron  Building." 

"I'm  afraid  your  art  education  is  on  the  bum, 
Mr.  Silver,"  says  Morgan.  "The  picture  is  27 
inches  by  42;  and  it  is  called  'Love's  Idle  Hour.' 
It  represents  a  number  of  cloak  models  doing 
the  two-step  on  the  bank  of  a  purple  river.  The 
cablegram  said  it  might  have  been  brought  to 
this  country.  My  collection  will  never  be  com 
plete  without  that  picture.  Well,  so  long, 
gents;  us  financiers  must  keep  early  hours." 

Mr.  Morgan  and  Klein  went  away  together  in 
a  cab.  Me  and  Silver  talked  about  how  simple 
and  unsuspecting  great  people  was;  and  Silver 
said  what  a  shame  it  would  be  to  try  to  rob  a 
man  like  Mr.  Morgan;  and  I  said  I  thought  it 
would  be  rather  imprudent,  myself.  Klein 
proposes  a  stroll  after  dinner;  and  me  and  him 
and  Silver  walks  down  toward  Seventh  Avenue 
to  see  the  sights.  Klein  sees  a  pair  of  cuff  links 
that  instigate  his  admiration  in  a  pawnshop 
window,  and  we  all  go  in  while  he  buys  'em. 

After  we  got  back  to  the  hotel  and  Klein  had 
gone,  Silver  jumps  at  me  and  waves  his  hands. 

"Did  you  see  it?"  says  he.  "Did  you  see  it, 
Billy?" 

"What?"  I  asks. 

"Why,    that    picture    that    Morgan    wants. 


38  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

It's  hanging  in  that  pawnshop,  behind  the  desk. 
I  didn't  say  anything  because  Klein  was  there. 
It's  the  article  sure  as  you  live.  The  girls  are 
as  natural  as  paint  can  make  them,  all  measur 
ing  36  and  25  and  42  skirts,  if  they  had  any 
skirts,  and  they're  doing  a  buck-and-wing  on 
the  bank  of  a  river  with  the  blues.  What  did 
Mr.  Morgan  say  he'd  give  for  it?  Oh,  don't 
make  me  tell  you.  They  can't  know  what  it  is 
in  that  pawnshop." 

When  the  pawnshop  opened  the  next  morning 
me  and  Silver  was  standing  there  as  anxious  as 
if  we  wanted  to  soak  our  Sunday  suit  to  buy  a 
drink.  We  sauntered  inside,  and  began  to  look 
at  watch-chains. 

"That's  a  violent  specimen  of  a  chromo 
you've  got  up  there,"  remarked  Silver,  casual,  to 
the  pawnbroker.  "But  I  kind  of  enthuse  over 
the  girl  with  the  shoulder-blades  and  red  bunt 
ing.  Would  an  offer  of  $2.25  for  it  cause  you  to 
knock  over  any  fragile  articles  of  your  stock  in 
hurrying  it  off  the  nail?" 

The  pawnbroker  smiles  and  goes  on  showing) 
us  plate  watch-chains. 

"That  picture,"  says  he,  "was  pledged  a  year/ 
ago  by  an  Italian  gentleman.  I  loaned  him 
$500  on  it.  It  is  called  'Love's  Idle  Hour,'  and 
it  is  by  Leonardo  de  Vinchy.  Two  days  ago 
the  legal  time  expired,  and  it  became  an  un 
redeemed  pledge.  Here  is  a  style  of  chain  that 
is  worn  a  great  deal  now." 

At  the  end  of  half  an  hour  me  and  Silver  paid 
the  pawnbroker  $2,000  and  walked  out  with 
the  picture.  Silver  got  into  a  cab  with  it  and 


BABES  IN  THE  JUNGLE  39 

started  for  Morgan's  office.  I  goes  to  the 
hotel  and  waits  for  him.  In  two  hours  Silver 
comes  back. 

"Did  you  see  Mr.  Morgan?"  I  asks.  "How 
much  did  he  pay  you  for  it?" 

Silver  sits  down  and  fools  with  a  tassel  on  the 
table  cover. 

"I  never  exactly  saw  Mr.  Morgan,"  he  says, 
"because  Mr.  Morgan's  been  in  Europe  for  a 
month.  But  what's  worrying  me,  Billy,  is 
this:  The  department  stores  have  all  got  that 
same  picture  on  sale,  framed,  for  $3.48.  And 
they  charge  $3.50  for  the  frame  alone — that's 
what  I  can't  understand." 


IV 
THE  DAY  RESURGENT 

I  CAN  see  the  artist  bite  the  end  of  his  pencil 
and  frown  when  it  comes  to  drawing  his  Easter 
picture;  for  his  legitimate  pictorial  conceptions 
of  figures  pertinent  to  the  festival  are  but  four 
in  number. 

First  comes  Easter,  pagan  goddess  of  spring. 
Here  his  fancy  may  have  free  play.  A  beautiful 
maiden  with  decorative  hair  and  the  proper 
number  of  toes  will  fill  the  bill.  Miss  Clarice 
St.  Vavasour,  the  well-known  model,  will  pose 
for  it  in  the  "Lethergogallagher,"  or  whatever 
it  was  that  Trilby  called  it. 

Second — the  melancholy  lady  with  upturned 
eyes  in  a  framework  of  lilies.  This  is  magazine- 
covery,  but  reliable. 

Third — Miss  Manhattan  in  Fifth  Avenue 
Easter  Sunday  parade. 

Fourth — Maggie  Murphy  with  a  new  red 
feather  in  her  old  straw  hat,  happy  and  self- 
conscious,  in  the  Grand  Street  turnout. 

Of  course,  the  rabbits  do  not  count.  Nor  the 
Easter  eggs,  since  the  higher  criticism  has 
hard-boiled  them. 

The  limited  field  of  its  pictorial  possibilities 
proves  that  Easter,  of  all  our  festival  days,  isj 

40 


THE  DAY  RESURGENT  41 

the  most  vague  and  shifting  in  our  conception. 
It  belongs  to  all  religions,  although  the  pagans 
invented  it.  Going  back  still  further  to  the 
first  spring,  we  can  see  Eve  choosing  with  pride 
a  new  green  leaf  from  the  tree  ficus  carica. 

Now,  the  object  of  this  critical  and  learned 
preamble  is  to  set  forth  the  theorem  that  Easter 
is  neither  a  date,  a  season,  a  festival,  a  holiday, 
nor  an  occasion.  What  it  is  you  shall  find  out 
if  you  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  Danny  McCree. 

Easter  Sunday  dawned  as  it  should,  bright 
and  early,  in  its  place  on  the  calendar  between 
Saturday  and  Monday.  At  5:24  the  sun  rose, 
and  at  10:30  Danny  followed  its  example.  He 
went  into  the  kitchen  and  washed  his  face  at  the 
sink.  His  mother  was  frying  bacon.  She 
looked  at  his  hard,  smooth,  knowing  counte 
nance  as  he  juggled  with  the  round  cake  of  soap, 
and  thought  of  his  father  when  she  first  saw 
him  stopping  a  hot  grounder  between  second 
and  third  twenty-two  years  before  on  a  vacant 
lot  in  Harlem,  where  the  La  Paloma  apartment 
house  now  stands.  In  the  front  room  of  the 
flat  Danny's  father  sat  by  an  open  window 
smoking  his  pipe,  with  his  dishevelled  gray  hair 
tossed  about  by  the  breeze.  He  still  clung  to 
his  pipe,  although  his  sight  had  been  taken  from 
him  two  years  before  by  a  precocious  blast  of 
giant  powder  that  went  off  without  permission. 
Very  few  blind  men  care  for  smoking,  for  the 
reason  that  they  cannot  see  the  smoke.  Now, 
could  you  enjoy  having  the  news  read  to  you 
from  an  evening  newspaper  unless  you  could  see 
the  colors  of  the  headlines? 


42  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

"  Tis  Easter  Day,"  said  Mrs.  McCree. 

"Scramble  mine,"  said  Danny. 

After  breakfast  he  dressed  himself  in  the 
Sabbath  morning  costume  of  the  Canal  Street 
importing  house  dray  chauffeur — frock  coat, 
striped  trousers,  patent  leathers,  gilded  trace 
chain  across  front  of  vest,  and  wing  collar, 
rolled-brim  derby  and  butterfly  bow  from 
Schonstein's  (between  Fourteenth  Street  and 
Tony's  fruit  stand)  Saturday  night  sale. 

"You'll  be  goin'  out  this  day,  of  course, 
Danny,"  said  old  man  McCree,  a  little  wist 
fully.  'Tis  a  kind  of  holiday,  they  say. 
Well,  it's  fine  spring  weather.  I  can  feel  it  in 
the  air." 

"Why  should  I  not  be  going  out?"  demanded 
Danny  in  his  grumpiest  chest  tones.  "Should 
I  stay  in?  Am  I  as  good  as  a  horse?  One  day 
of  rest  my  team  has  a  week.  Who  earns  the 
money  for  the  rent  and  the  breakfast  you've 
just  eat,  I'd  like  to  know?  Answer  me  that!" 

"All  right,  lad,"  said  the  old  man.  "I'm  not 
complainin'.  While  me  two  eyes  was  good  there 
was  nothin'  better  to  my  mind  than  a  Sunday 
out.  There's  a  smell  of  turf  and  burnin'  brush 
comin'  in  the  windy.  I  have  me  tobaccy.  A 
good  fine  day  and  rist  to  ye,  lad.  Times  I 
wished  your  mother  had  larned  to  read,  so  I 
might  hear  the  rest  about  the  hippopotamus — 
but  let  that  be." 

"Now,  what  is  this  foolishness  he  talks  of 
hippopotamuses?"  asked  Danny  of  his  mother, 
as  he  passed  through  the  kitchen.  "Have  you 
been  taking  him  to  the  Zoo?  And  for  what?" 


THE  DAY  RESURGENT  43 

"I  have  not,"  said  Mrs.  McCree.  "He  sets 
by  the  windy  all  day.  'Tis  little  recreation  a 
blind  man  among  the  poor  gets  at  all.  I'm 
thinkin'  they  wander  in  their  minds  at  times. 
One  day  he  talks  of  grease  without  stoppin'  for 
the  most  of  an  hour.  I  looks  to  see  if  there's 
lard  burnin'  in  the  fryin'  pan.  There  is  not. 
He  says  I  do  not  understand.  'TJs  weary  days, 
Sundays,  and  holidays  and  all,  for  a  blind  man, 
Danny.  There  was  no  better  nor  stronger  than 
him  when  he  had  his  two  eyes.  'Tis  a  fine  day, 
son.  Injoy  yerself  ag'inst  the  morning.  There 
will  be  cold  supper  at  six." 

"Have  you  heard  any  talk  of  a  hippopota 
mus?"  asked  Danny  of  Mike,  the  janitor,  as  he 
went  out  the  door  downstairs. 

"I  have  not,"  said  Mike,  pulling  his  shirt 
sleeves  higher.  "But  'tis  the  only  subject  in 
the  animal,  natural  and  illegal  lists  of  outrages 
that  I've  not  been  complained  to  about  these 
two  days.  See  the  landlord.  Or  else  move  out 
if  ye  like.  Have  ye  hippopotamuses  in  the 
lease?  No,  then?" 

"It  was  the  old  man  who  spoke  of  it,"  said 
Danny.  "Likely  there's  nothing  in  it." 

Danny  walked  up  the  street  to  the  Avenue 
and  then  struck  northward  into  the  heart  of  the 
district  where  Easter — modern  Easter,  in  new, 
bright  raiment — leads  the  pascal  march.  Out 
of  towering  brown  churches  came  the  blithe 
music  of  anthems  from  the  living  flowers — so 
it  seemed  when  your  eye  looked  upon  the 
Easter  girl. 

Gentlemen,  frock-coated,  silk-hatted,  garde- 


44  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

niaed,  sustained  the  background  of  the  tra 
dition.  Children  carried  lilies  in  their  hands. 
The  windows  of  the  brownstone  mansions  were 
packed  with  the  most  opulent  creations  of  Flora, 
the  sister  of  the  Lady  of  the  Lilies. 

Around  a  corner,  white-gloved,  pink-gilled, 
and  tightly  buttoned,  walked  Corrigan,  the  cop, 
shield  to  the  curb.  Danny  knew  him. 

"Why,  Corrigan,"  he  asked,  "is  Easter?  I 
know  it  comes  the  first  time  you're  full  after  the 
moon  rises  on  the  seventeenth  of  March — but 
why?  Is  it  a  proper  and  religious  ceremony,  or 
does  the  Governor  appoint  it  out  of  politics?'* 
1  'Tis  an  annual  celebration,"  said  Corrigan, 
with  the  judicial  air  of  the  Third  Deputy 
Police  Commissioner,  "peculiar  to  New  York. 
It  extends  up  to  Harlem.  Sometimes  they  has 
the  reserves  out  at  One  Hundred  and  Twenty- 
fifth  Street.  In  my  opinion  'tis  not  political." 

"Thanks,"  said  Danny.  "And  say — did  you 
ever  hear  a  man  complain  of  hippopotamuses? 
When  not  specially  in  drink,  I  mean." 

"Nothing  larger  than  sea  turtles,"  said  Corri 
gan,  reflecting,  "and  there  was  wood  alcohol  in 
that." 

Danny  wandered.  The  double,  heavy  in 
cumbency  of  enjoying  simultaneously  a  Sunday 
and  a  festival  day  was  his. 

The  sorrows  of  the  hand-toiler  fit  him  easily. 
They  are  worn  so  often  that  they  hang  with 
the  picturesque  lines  of  the  best  tailor-made 
garments.  That  is  why  well-fed  artists  of 
pencil  and  pen  find  in  the  griefs  of  the  common 


THE  DAY  RESURGENT  45 

people  their  most  striking  models.  But  when 
the  Philistine  would  disport  himself,  the  grim- 
ness  of  Melpomene,  herself,  attends  upon  his 
capers.  Therefore,  Danny  set  his  jaw  hard  at 
Easter,  and  took  his  pleasure  sadly. 

The  family  entrance  of  Dugan's  cafe  was 
feasible;  so  Danny  yielded  to  the  vernal  season 
as  far  as  a  glass  of  bock.  Seated  in  a  dark, 
linoleumed,  humid  back  room,  his  heart  and 
mind  still  groped  after  the  mysterious  meaning 
of  the  springtime  jubilee. 

''Say,  Tim,"  he  said  to  the  waiter,  "why  do 
they  have  Easter?" 

"Skiddoo!"  said  Tim,  closing  a  sophisticated 
eye.  "Is  that  a  new  one?  All  right.  Tony 
Pastor's  for  you  last  night,  I  guess.  I  give  it 
up.  What's  the  answer — two  apples  or  a  yard 
and  a  half?" 

From  Dugan's  Danny  turned  back  eastward. 
The  April  sun  seemed  to  stir  in  him  a  vague 
feeling  that  he  could  not  construe.  He  made  a 
wrong  diagnosis  and  decided  that  it  was  Katy 
Conlon. 

A  block  from  her  house  on  Avenue  A  he  met 
her  going  to  church.  They  pumped  hands  on 
the  corner. 

"Gee!  but  you  look  dumpish  and  dressed 
up,"  said  Katy.  "What's  wrong?  Come  away 
with  me  to  church  and  be  cheerful." 

"WTiat's  doing  at  church?"  asked  Danny. 

"Why,  it's  Easter  Sunday.  Silly!  I  waited 
till  after  eleven  expectin'  you  might  come 
around  to  go." 


46  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

"What  does  this  Easter  stand  for,  Katy?" 
asked  Danny  gloomily.  " Nobody  seems  to 
know." 

"Nobody  as  blind  as  you,"  said  Katy  with 
spirit.  "You  haven't  even  looked  at  my  new 
hat.  And  skirt.  Why,  it's  when  all  the  girls 
put  on  new  spring  clothes.  Silly!  Are  you 
coming  to  church  with  me?" 

"I  will,"  said  Danny.  "If  this  Easter  is 
pulled  off  there,  they  ought  to  be  able  to  give 
some  excuse  for  it.  Not  that  the  hat  ain't  a 
beauty.  The  green  roses  are  great." 

At  church  the  preacher  did  some  expounding 
with  no  pounding.  He  spoke  rapidly,  for  he 
was  in  a  hurry  to  get  home  to  his  early  Sabbath 
dinner;  but  he  knew  his  business.  There  was 
one  word  that  controlled  his  theme — resurrec 
tion.  Not  a  new  creation;  but  a  new  life  arising 
out  of  the  old.  The  congregation  had  heard  it 
often  before.  But  there  was  a  wonderful  hat, 
a  combination  of  sweet  peas  and  lavender,  in 
the  sixth  pew  from  the  pulpit.  It  attracted 
much  attention. 

After  church  Danny  lingered  on  a  corner  while 
Katy  waited,  with  pique  in  her  sky-blue  eyes. 

"Are  you  coming  along  to  the  house?"  she 
asked.  "But  don't  mind  me.  I'll  get  there 
all  right.  You  seem  to  be  studyin'  a  lot  about 
something.  All  right.  Will  I  see  you  at  any 
time  specially,  Mr.  McCree?" 

"I'll  be  around  Wednesday  night  as  usual," 
said  Danny,  turning  and  crossing  the  street. 

Katy  walked  away  with  the  green  roses 
dangling  indignantly.  Danny  stopped  two 


THE  DAY  RESURGENT  47 

blocks  away.  He  stood  still  with  his  hands  in 
his  pockets,  at  the  curb  on  the  corner.  His 
face  was  that  of  a  graven  image.  Deep  in  his 
soul  something  stirred  so  small,  so  fine,  so  keen 
and  leavening  that  his  hard  fibres  did  not 
recognize  it.  It  was  something  more  tender 
than  the  April  day,  more  subtle  than  the  call 
of  the  senses,  purer  and  deeper-rooted  than  the 
love  of  woman — for  had  he  not  turned  away 
from  green  roses  and  eyes  that  had  kept  him 
chained  for  a  year?  And  Danny  did  not  know 
what  it  was.  The  preacher,  who  was  in  a 
hurry  to  go  to  his  dinner,  had  told  him,  but 
Danny  had  had  no  libretto  with  which  to  follow 
the  drowsy  intonation.  But  the  preacher  spoke 
the  truth. 

Suddenly  Danny  slapped  his  leg  and  gave 
forth  a  hoarse  yell  of  delight. 

"Hippopotamus!"  he  shouted  to  an  elevated 
road  pillar.  "Well,  how  is  that  for  a  bum 
guess  ?  Why,  blast  my  skylights !  I  know  what 
he  was  driving  at  now. 

"Hippopotamus!  Wouldn't  that  send  you 
to  the  Bronx!  It's  been  a  year  since  he  heard  it; 
and  he  didn't  miss  it  so  very  far.  We  quit  at 
469  B.  C.  and  this  comes  next.  Well,  a  wooden 
man  wouldn't  have  guessed  what  he  was  trying 
to  get  out  of  him." 

Danny  caught  a  crosstown  car  and  went  up 
to  the  rear  flat  that  his  labor  supported. 

Old  man  McCree  was  still  sitting  by  the 
window.  His  extinct  pipe  lay  on  the  sill. 

"Will  that  be  you,  lad?"  he  asked. 
,    Danny  flared  into  the  rage  of  a  strong  man 


48  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

who  is  surprised  at  the  outset  of  committing  a 
good  deed. 

"Who  pays  the  rent  and  buys  the  food  that 
is  eaten  in  this  house?"  he  snapped,  viciously. 
"Have  I  no  right  to  come  in?'* 

"Ye're  a  faithful  lad,"  said  old  man  McCree, 
with  a  sigh.  "Is  it  evening  yet?" 

Danny  reached  up  on  a  shelf  and  took  down 
a  thick  book  labeled  in  gilt  letters,  "The  History 
of  Greece."  Dust  was  on  it  half  an  inch  thick. 
He  laid  it  on  the  table  and  found  a  place  in  it 
marked  by  a  strip  of  paper.  And  then  he  gave 
a  short  roar  at  the  top  of  his  voice,  and  said: 

"Was  it  the  hippopotamus  you  wanted  to  be 
read  to  about  then?" 

"Did  I  hear  ye  open  the  book?"  said  old  man 
McCree.  "Many  and  weary  be  the  months 
since  my  lad  has  read  it  to  me.  I  dinno;  but  I 
took  a  great  likings  to  them  Greeks.  Ye  left 
off  at  a  place.  'Tis  a  fine  day  outside,  lad.  Be 
out  and  take  rest  from  your  work.  I  have 
gotten  used  to  me  chair  by  the  windy  and  me 
pipe." 

"Pel-Peloponnesus  was  the  place  where  we 
left  off,  and  not  hippopotamus,"  said  Danny. 
"The  war  began  there.  It  kept  something 
doing  for  thirty  years.  The  headlines  says  that 
a  guy  named  Philip  of  Macedon,  in  338  B.  C., 
got  to  be  boss  of  Greece  by  getting  the  decision 
at  the  battle  of  Cher-Cheronoea.  I'll  read  it." 

With  his  hand  to  his  ear,  rapt  in  the  Pelo- 
ponnesian  War,  old  man  McCree  sat  for  an  hour, 
listening. 

Then  he  got  up  and  felt  his  way  to  the  door 


THE  DAY  RESURGENT  49 

of  the  kitchen.  Mrs.  McCree  was  slicing  cold 
meat.  She  looked  up.  Tears  were  running 
from  old  man  McCree  s  eyes. 

"Do  ye  hear  our  lad  readin'  to  me?"  he  said. 
"There  is  none  finer  in  the  land.  My  two  eyes 
have  come  back  to  me  again." 

After  supper  he  said  to  Danny:  "  Tis  a  happy 
day,  this  Easter.  And  now  ye  will  be  off  to  see 
Katy  in  the  evening.  Well  enough." 

"Who  pays  the  rent  and  buys  the  food  that 
is  eaten  in  this  house?"  said  Danny,  angrily. 
"Have  I  no  right  to  stay  in  it?  After  supper 
there  is  yet  to  come  the  reading  of  the  battle  of 
Corinth,  146  B.  C.,  when  the  kingdom,  as  they 
say,  became  an  in-integral  portion  of  the 
Roman  Empire.  Am  I  nothing  in  this  house?" 


THE  FIFTH  WHEEL 

THE  ranks  of  the  Bed  Line  moved  closer 
together;  for  it  was  cold,  cold.  They  were 
alluvial  deposit  of  the  stream  of  life  lodged 
in  the  delta  of  Fifth  Avenue  and  Broadway. 
The  Bed  Liners  stamped  their  freezing  feet, 
looked  at  the  empty  benches  in  Madison  Square 
whence  Jack  Frosr  had  evicted  them,  and  mut- 
Itered  to  one  another  in  a  confusion  of  tongues. 
The  Flatiron  Building,  with  its  impious-  cloud- 
piercing  architecture  looming  mistily  above 
them  on  the  opposite  delta,  might  well  have 
stood  for  the  tower  of  Babel,  whence  these  poly 
glot  idlers  had  been  called  by  the  winged  walking 
delegate  of  the  Lord. 

Standing  on  a  pine  box  a  head  higher  than  his 
flock  of  goats,  the  Preacher  exhorted  whatever 
transient  and  shifting  audience  the  north 
wind  doled  out  to  him.  It  was  a  slave  market. 
Fifteen  cents  bought  you  a  man.  You  deeded 
him  to  Morpheus;  and  the  recording  angel  gave 
you  credit. 

The  Preacher  was  incredibly  earnest  and  un 
wearied.  He  had  looked  over  the  list  of  things 
one  may  do  for  one's  fellow  man,  and  had 
assumed  for  himself  the  task  of  putting  to  bed 

So 


THE  FIFTH  WHEEL  5i 

all  who  might  apply  at  his  soap  box  on  the 
nights  of  Wednesday  and  Sunday.  That  left 
but  five  nights  for  other  philanthropists  to 
handle;  and  had  they  done  their  part  as  well, 
this  wicked  city  might  have  become  a  vast 
Arcadian  dormitory  where  all  might  snooze  and 
snore  the  happy  hours  away,  letting  problem 
plays  and  the  rent  man  and  business  go  to  the 
deuce. 

The  hour  of  eight  was  but  a  little  while  past; 
sightseers  in  a  small,  dark  mass  of  pay  ore  were 
gathered  in  the  shadow  of  General  Worth's 
monument.  Now  and  then,  shyly,  osten 
tatiously,  carelessly,  or  with  conscientious 
exactness  one  would  step  forward  and  bestow 
upon  the  Preacher  small  bills  or  silver.  Then 
a  lieutenant  of  Scandinavian  coloring  and 
enthusiasm  would  march  away  to  a  lodging 
house  with  a  squad  of  the  redeemed.  All  the 
while  the  Preacher  exhorted  the  crowd  in  terms 
beautifully  devoid  of  eloquence— splendid  with 
the  deadly,  accusive  monotony  of  truth.  Be 
fore  the  picture  of  the  Bed  Liners  fades  you  must 
hear  one  phrase  of  the  Preacher's— the  one  that 
formed  his  theme  that  night.  It  is  worthy  of 
being  stenciled  on  all  the  white  ribbons  in  the 
i  world. 

"No  man  ever  learned  to  be  a  drunkard  on  five- 
cent  whisky." 

,     Think  of  it,  tippler.     It  covers  the  ground 
from  the  sprouting  rye  to  the  Potter's  Field. 

A  clean-profiled,  erect  young  man  in  the  rear 
'rank  of  the  bedless  emulated  the  terrapin,  draw 
ling  his  head  far  down  into  the  shell  of  his  coat 


52  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

collar.  It  was  a  well-cut  tweed  coat;  and  the 
trousers  still  showed  signs  of  having  flattened 
themselves  beneath  the  compelling  goose.  But, 
conscientiously,  I  must  warn  the  milliner's 
apprentice  who  reads  this,  expecting  a  Reginald 
Montressor  in  straits,  to  peruse  no  further. 
The  young  man  was  no  other  than  Thomas 
McQuade,  ex-coachman,  discharged  for  drunken 
ness  one  month  before,  and  now  reduced  to  the 
grimy  ranks  of  the  one-night  bed  seekers. 

If  you  live  in  smaller  New  York  you  must 
know  the  Van  Smuythe  family  carriage,  drawn 
by  the  two  i,5<DO-pound,  100  to  i-shot  bays. 
The  carriage  is  shaped  like  a  bath-tub.  In 
each  end  of  it  reclines  an  old  lady  Van  Smuythe 
holding  a  black  sunshade  the  size  of  a  New 
Year's  Eve  feather  tickler.  Before  his  downfall 
Thomas  McQuade  drove  the  Van  Smuythe  bays 
and  was  himself  driven  by  Annie,  the  Van 
Smuythe  lady's  maid.  But  it  is  one  of  the 
saddest  things  about  romance  that  a  tight  shoe 
or  an  empty  commissary  or  an  aching  tooth 
will  make  a  temporary  heretic  of  any  Cupid- 
worshiper.  And  Thomas's  physical  troubles 
were  not  few.  Therefore,  his  soul  was  less 
vexed  with  thoughts  of  his  lost  lady's  maid  than 
it  was  by  the  fancied  presence  of  certain  non 
existent  things  that  his  racked  nerves  almost 
convinced  him  were  flying,  dancing,  crawling, 
and  wriggling  on  the  asphalt  and  in  the  air 
above  and  around  the  dismal  campus  of  the 
Bed  Line  army.  Nearly  four  weeks  of  straight 
whisky  and  a  diet  limited  to  crackers,  bologna, 
and  pickles  often  guarantees  a  psycho-zoological 


THE  FIFTH  WHEEL  53 

sequel.  Thus  desperate,  freezing,  angry,  beset 
by  phantoms  as  ne  was,  he  felt  the  need  of 
human  sympathy  and  intercourse. 

The  Bed  Liner  standing  at  his  right  was  a 
young  man  of  about  his  own  age,  shabby  but 
neat. 

"What's  the  diagnosis  of  your  case,  Freddy?" 
asked  Thomas,  with  the  freemasonic  familiarity 
of  the  damned— "Booze?  That's  mine.  You 
don't  look  like  a  pan-handler.  Neither  am  I. 
A  month  ago  I  was  pushing  the  lines  over  the 
backs  of  the  finest  team  of  Percheron  buffaloes 
that  ever  made  their  mile  down  Fifth  Avenue 
in  2.85.  And  look  at  me  now!  Say;  how  do 
you  come  to  be  at  this  bed  bargain-counter 
rummage  sale?" 

;     The  other  young  man  seemed  to  welcome  the 
advances  of  the  airy  ex-coachman. 

"No,"  said  he,  "mine  isn't  exactly  a  case  of 
drink.  Unless  we  allow  that  Cupid  is  a  bar 
tender.  I  married  unwisely,  according  to  the 
opinion  of  my  unforgiving  relatives.  I've  been 
out  of  work  for  a  year  because  I  don't  know  how 
to  work;  and  I've  been  sick  in  Bellevue  and 
other  hospitals  four  months.  My  wife  and  kid 
had  to  go  back  to  her  mother.  I  was  turned  out 
of  the  hospital  yesterday.  And  I  haven't  a 
cent.  That's  my  tale  of  woe." 

"Tough  luck,"  said  Thomas.  "A  man  alone 
can  pull  through  all  right.  But  I  hate  to  see  the 
wcmen  and  kids  get  the  worst  of  it." 

Just  then  there  hummed  up  Fifth  Avenue  a 
motor  car  so  splendid,  so  red,  so  smoothly 
running,  so  craftily  demolishing  the  speed  regu- 


54  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

lations  that  it  drew  the  attention  even  of  the 
listless  Bed  Liners.  Suspended  and  pinioned 
on  its  left  side  was  an  extra  tire. 

When  opposite  the  unfortunate  company  the 
fastenings  of  this  tire  became  loosed.  It  fell 
to  the  asphalt,  bounded  and  rolled  rapidly  in  the 
wake  of  the  flying  car. 

Thomas  McQuade,  scenting  an  opportunity, 
darted  from  his  place  among  the  Preacher's 
goats.  In  thirty  seconds  he  had  caught  the 
rolling  tire,  swung  it  over  his  shoulder,  and  was 
trotting  smartly  after  the  car.  On  both  sides 
of  the  avenue  people  were  shouting,  whistling, 
and  waving  canes  at  the  red  car,  pointing  to  the 
enterprising  Thomas  coming  up  with  the  lost  tire. 

One  dollar,  Thomas  had  estimated,  was  the 
smallest  guerdon  that  so  grand  an  automobilist 
could  offer  for  the  service  he  had  rendered,  and 
save  his  pride. 

Two  blocks  away  the  car  had  stopped. 
There  was  a  little,  brown,  muffled  chauffeur 
driving,  and  an  imposing  gentleman  wearing 
a  magnificent  sealskin  coat  and  a  silk  hat  on  a 
rear  seat. 

Thomas  proffered  the  captured  tire  with  his 
best  ex-coachman  manner  and  a  look  in  the 
brighter  of  his  reddened  eyes  that  was  meant 
to  be  suggestive  to  the  extent  of  a  silver  coin 
or  two  and  receptive  up  to  higher  denominations. 

But  the  look -was  not  so  construed.  The 
sealskinned  gentleman  received  the  tire,  placed 
it  inside  the  car,  gazed  intently  at  the  ex- 
coachman,  and  muttered  to  himself  inscrutable 
words. 


THE  FIFTH  WHEEL  55 

"Strange — strange!"  said  he.  "Once  or  twice 
even  I,  myself,  have  fancied  that  the  Chaldean 
Chiroscope  has  availed.  Could  it  be  possible?" 

Then  he  addressed  less  mysterious  words  to 
the  waiting  and  hopeful  Thomas. 

"Sir,  I  t'hank  you  for  your  kind  rescue  of  my 
tire.  And  I  would  ask  you,  if  I  may,  a  question. 
Do  you  know  the  family  of  Van  Smuythes  living 
in  Washington  Square  North?" 

"Oughtn't  I  to?"  replied  Thomas.  "I  lived 
there.  Wish  I  did  yet." 

The  sealskinned  gentleman  opened  a  door  of 
the  car. 

"Step  in,  please,"  he  said.  "You  have  been 
expected." 

Thomas  McQuade  obeyed  with  surprise  but 
without  hesitation.  A  seat  in  a  motor  car 
seemed  better  than  standing  room  in  the  Bed 
Line.  But  after  the  lap-robe  had  been  tucked 
about  him  and  the  auto  had  sped  on  its  course, 
the  peculiarity  of  the  invitation  lingered  in  his 
mind. 

"Maybe  the  guy  hasn't  got  any  change,"  was 
his  diagnosis.  "Lots  of  these  swell  rounders 
don't  lug  about  any  ready  money.  Guess  he'll 
dump  me  out  when  he  gets  to  some  joint  where 
he  can  get  cash  on  his  mug.  Anyhow,  it's  a 
cinch  that  I've  got  that  open-air  bed  con 
vention  beat  to  a  finish." 

Submerged  in  his  greatcoat,  the  mysterious 
automobilist  seemed,  himself,  to  marvel  at 
the  surprises  of  life.  "Wonderful!  amazing! 
strange!"  he  repeated  to  himself  constantly. 

When  the  car  had  well  entered  the  crosstown 


56  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

Seventies  it  swung  eastward  a  half  block  and 
stopped  before  a  row  of  high-stooped,  brown- 
stone-front  houses. 

"  Be  kind  enough  to  enter  my  house  with  me," 
said  the  sealskinned  gentleman  when  they  had 
alighted.  "He's  going  to  dig  up,  sure,"  re 
flected  Thomas,  following  him  inside. 

There  was  a  dim  light  in  the  hall.  His  host 
conducted  him  through  a  door  to  the  left,  closing 
it  after  him  and  leaving  them  in  absolute  dark 
ness.  Suddenly  a  luminous  globe,  strangely 
decorated,  shone  faintly  in  the  centre  of  an 
immense  room  that  seemed  to  Thomas  more 
splendidly  appointed  than  any  he  had  ever  seen 
on  the  stage  or  read  of  in  fairy  stories. 

The  walls  were  hidden  by  gorgeous  red  hang 
ings  embroidered  with  fantastic  gold  figures. 
At  the  rear  end  of  the  room  were  draped  por 
tieres  of  dull  gold  spangled  with  silver  crescents 
and  stars.  The  furniture  was  of  the  costliest 
and  rarest  styles.  The  ex-coachman's  feet  sank 
into  rugs  as  fleecy  and  deep  as  snowdrifts. 
There  were  three  or  four  oddly  shaped  stands  or 
tables  covered  with  black  velvet  drapery. 

Thomas  McQuade  took  in  the  splendors  of 
this  palatial  apartment  with  one  eye.  With 
the  other  he  looked  for  his  imposing  conductor — 
to  find  that  he  had  disappeared. 

"B'gee!"  muttered  Thomas,  "this  listens  like 
a  spook  shop.  Shouldn't  wonder  if  it  ain't 
one  of  these  Moravian  Nights'  adventures  that 
you  read  about.  Wonder  what  became  of  the 
furry  guy." 

Suddenly  a  stuffed  owl  that  stood  on  an  ebony 


THE  FIFTH  WHEEL  57 

perch  near  the  illuminated  globe  slowly  raised 
his  wings  and  emitted  from  his  eyes  a  brilliant 
electric  glow. 

With  a  fright-born  imprecation,  Thomas 
seized  a  bronze  statuette  of  Hebe  from  a  cabinet 
near  by  and  hurled  it  with  all  his  might  at  the 
terrifying  and  impossible  fowl.  The  owl  and 
his  perch  went  over  with  a  crash.  With  the 
sound  there  was  a  click,  and  the  room  was 
flooded  with  light  from  a  dozen  frosted  globes 
along  the  walls  and  ceiling.  The  gold  portieres 
parted  and  closed,  and  the  mysterious  auto- 
mobilist  entered  the  room.  He  was  tall  and 
wore  evening  dress  of  perfect  cut  and  accurate 
taste.  A  Vandyke  beard  of  glossy,  golden 
brown,  rather  long  and  wavy  hair,  smoothly 
parted,  and  large,  magnetic,  orientally  occult 
eyes  gave  him  a  most  impressive  and  striking 
appearance.  If  you  can  conceive  a  Russian 
Grand  Duke  in  a  Rajah's  throne-room  advanc 
ing  to  greet  a  visiting  Emperor,  you  will  gather 
something  of  the  majesty  of  his  manner.  But 
Thomas  McQuade  was  too  near  his  d  t's  to  be 
mindful  of  his  p's  and  q  s.  When  he  viewed 
this  silken,  polished,  and  somewhat  terrifying 
host  he  thought  vaguely  of  dentists. 

"Say,  doc,"  said  he  resentfully,  "that's  a 
hot  bird  you  keep  on  tap.  I  hope  I  didn't 
break  anything.  But  I've  nearly  got  the 
williwalloos,  and  when  he  threw  them  32- 
candle-power  lamps  of  his  on  me,  I  took  a  snap 
shot  at  him  with  that  little  brass  Flatiron  Girl 
that  stood  on  the  sideboard." 

"That  is  merely  a  mechanical  toy,"  said  the 


S8  STRICTLY  BUSINESS  , 

gentleman  with  a  wave  of  his  hand.  "May  I 
ask  you  to  be  seated  while  I  explain  why  I 
brought  you  to  my  house?  Perhaps  you  would 
not  understand  nor  be  in  sympathy  with  the 
psychological  prompting  that  caused  me  to  do 
so.  So  I  will  come  to  the  point  at  once  by 
venturing  to  refer  to  your  admission  that  you 
know  the  Van  Smuythe  family,  of  Washington 
Square  North." 

"Any  silver  missing?"  asked  Thomas  tartly. 
"Any  joolry  displaced  ?  Of  course  I  know  'em. 
Any  of  the  old  ladies'  sunshades  disappeared? 
Well,  I  know  'em.  And  then  what?" 

The  Grand  Duke  rubbed  his  white  hands 
together  softly. 

"Wonderful!"  he  murmured.  "Wonderful! 
Shall  I  come  to  believe  in  the  Chaldean  Chiro- 
scope  myself?  Let  me  assure  you,"  he  con 
tinued,  "that  there  is  nothing  for  you  to  fear. 
Instead,  I  think  I  can  promise  you  that  very 
good  fortune  awaits  you.  We  will  see." 

"Do  they  want  me  back?"  asked  Thomas, 
with  something  of  his  old  professional  pride  in 
his  voice.  "I'll  promise  to  cut  out  the  booze 
and  do  the  right  thing  if  they'll  try  me  again. 
But  how  did  you  get  wise,  doc?  B'gee,  it's  the 
swellest  employment  agency  I  was  ever  in, 
with  its  flashlight  owls  and  so  forth." 

With  an  indulgent  smile  the  gracious  host 
begged  to  be  excused  for  two  minutes.  He  went 
out  to  the  sidewalk  and  gave  an  order  to  the 
chauffeur,  who  still  waited  with  the  car.  Re 
turning  to  the  mysterious  apartment,  he  sat  by 


THE  FIFTH  WHEEL  59 

his  guest  and  began  to  entertain  him  so  well  by 
his  witty  and  genial  converse  that  the  poor  Bed 
Liner  almost  forgot  the  cold  streets  from  which 
he  had  been  so  recently  and  so  singularly 
rescued.  A  servant  brought  some  tender  cold 
fowl  and  tea  biscuits  and  a  glass  of  miraculous 
wine;  and  Thomas  felt  the  glamor  of  Arabia 
envelop  him.  Thus  half  an  hour  sped  qrackly; 
and  then  the  honk  of  the  returned  motor  car  at 
the  door  suddenly  drew  the  Grand  Duke  to  his 
feet,  with  another  soft  petition  for  a  brief 
absence. 

Two  women,  well  muffled  against  the  cold, 
were  admitted  at  the  front  door  and  suavely 
conducted  by  the  master  of  the  house  down  the 
hall  through  another  door  to  the  left  and  into  a 
smaller  room,  which  was  screened  and  segre 
gated  from  the  larger  front  room  by  heavy 
double  portieres.  Here  the  furnishings  were 
even  more  elegant  and  exquisitely  tasteful  than 
in  the  other.  On  a  gold-inlaid  rosewood  table 
were  scattered  sheets  of  white  paper  and  a 
queer,  triangular  instrument  or  toy,  apparently 
of  gold,  standing  on  little  wheels. 

The  taller  woman  threw  back  her  black  veil 
and  loosened  her  cloak.  She  was  fifty,  with  a 
wrinkled  and  sad  face.  The  other,  young  and 
plump,  took  a  chair  a  little  distance  away  and  to 
the  rear  as  a  servant  or  an  attendant  might  have 
done. 

"You  sent  for  me,  Professor  Cherubusco," 
said  the  elder  woman,  wearily.  "I  hope  you 
have  something  more  definite  than  usual  to  say. 


60  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

I've  about  lost  the  little  faith  I  had  in  your  art. 
I  would  not  have  responded  to  your  call  this 
evening  if  my  sister  had  not  insisted  upon  it." 

"Madame,"  said  the  professor,  with  his 
princeliest  smile,  "the  true  Art  cannot  fail. 
To  find  the  true  psychic  and  potential  branch 
sometimes  requires  time.  We  have  not  suc 
ceeded,  I  admit,  with  the  cards,  the  crystal,  the 
stars,  the  magic  formulae  of  Zarazin,  nor  the 
Oracle  of  Po.  But  we  have  at  last  discovered 
the  true  psychic  route.  The  Chaldean  Chiro- 
scope  has  been  successful  in  our  search." 

The  professor's  voice  had  a  ring  that  seemed 
to  proclaim  his  belief  in  his  own  words.  The 
elderly  lady  looked  at  him  with  a  little  more 
interest. 

"Why,  there  was  no  sense  in  those  words 
that  it  wrote  with  my  hands  on  it,"  she  said. 
"What  do  you  mean?" 

"The  words  were  these,"  said  Professor 
Cherubusco,  rising  to  his  full  magnificent 
height:  "'By  the  fifth  wheel  of  the  chariot  he 
shall  come." 

"I  haven't  seen  many  chariots,"  said  the 
lady,  "but  I  never  saw  one  with  five  wheels." 

"Progress,"  said  the  professor — "progress  in 
science  and  mechanics  has  accomplished  it — 
though,  to  be  exact,  we  may  speak  of  it  only  as 
an  extra  tire.  Progress  in  occult  art  has  ad 
vanced  in  proportion.  Madame,  I  repeat  that 
the  Chaldean  Chiroscope  has  succeeded.  I  can 
not  only  answer  the  question  that  you  have 
propounded,  but  I  can  produce  before  your  eyes 
the  proof  thereof." 


THE  FIFTH  WHEEL  61 

And  now  the  lady  was  disturbed  both  in  her 
disbelief  and  in  her  poise. 

"O  professor!"  she  cried,  anxiously—  "When? 
— where?  Has  he  been  found?  Do  not  keep 
me  in  suspense." 

"I  beg  you  will  excuse  me  for  a  very  few 
minutes,"  said  Professor  Cherubusco,  "and  I 
think  I  can  demonstrate  to  you  the  efficacy  of 
the  true  Art." 

Thomas  was  contentedly  munching  the  last 
crumbs  of  the  bread  and  fowl  when  the  en 
chanter  appeared  suddenly  at  his  side. 

"Are  you  willing  to  return  to  your  old  home  if 
you  are  assured  of  a  welcome  and  restoration  to 
favor?"  he  asked,  with  his  courteous,  royal 
smile. 

"Do  I  look  bughouse?"  answered  Thomas. 
"Enough  of  the  footback  life  for  me.  But  will 
they  have  me  again?  The  old  lady  is  as  fixed 
in  her  ways  as  a  nut  on  a  new  axle." 

"My  dear  young  man,"  said  the  other,  "she 
has  been  searching  for  you  everywhere." 

"Great!"  said  Thomas.  "I'm  on  the  job. 
That  team  of  dropsical  dromedaries  they  call 
horses  is  a  handicap  for  a  first-class  coachman 
like  myself;  but  I'll  take  the  job  back,  sure,  doc. 
They're  good  people  to  be  with." 

And  now  a  change  came  o'er  the  suave  counte 
nance  of  the  Caliph  of  Bagdad.  He  looked 
keenly  and  suspiciously  at  the  ex-coachman. 

"May  I  ask  what  your  name  is?"  he  said 
shortly. 

"You've  been  looking  for  me,"  said  Thomas, 
"and  don't  know  my  name?  You're  a  funny 


62  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

kind  of  sleuth.  You  must  be  one  of  the  Central 
Office  gumshoers.  I'm  Thomas  McQuade,  of 
course;  and  I've  been  chauffeur  of  the  Van 
Smuythe  elephant  team  for  a  year.  They  fired 
me  a  month  ago  for — well,  doc,  you  saw  what  I 
did  to  your  old  owl.  I  went  broke  on  booze,  and 
when  I  saw  the  tire  drop  off  your  whiz  wagon  I 
was  standing  in  that  squad  of  hoboes  at  the 
Worth  monument  waiting  for  a  free  bed.  Now, 
what's  the  prize  for  the  best  answer  to  all  this  ? " 

To  his  intense  surprise  Thomas  felt  himself 
lifted  by  the  collar  and  dragged,  without  a  word 
of  explanation,  to  the  front  door.  This  was 
opened,  and  he  was  kicked  forcibly  down  the 
steps  with  one  heavy,  disillusionizing,  humiliat 
ing  impact  of  the  stupendous  Arabian's  shoe. 

As  soon  as  the  ex-coachman  had  recovered  his 
feet  and  his  wits  he  hastened  as  fast  as  he  could 
eastward  toward  Broadway. 

"Crazy  guy,"  was  his  estimate  of  the  mys 
terious  automobilist.  "Just  wanted  to  have 
some  fun  kiddin',  I  guess.  He  might  have  dug 
up  a  dollar,  anyhow.  Now  I've  got  to  hurry 
up  and  get  back  to  that  gang  of  bum  bed 
hunters  before  they  all  get  preached  to  sleep." 

When  Thomas  reached  the  end  of  his  two- 
mile  walk  he  found  the  ranks  of  the  homeless 
reduced  to  a  squad  of  perhaps  eight  or  ten.  He 
took  the  proper  place  of  a  newcomer  at  the  left 
end  of  the  rear  rank.  In  the  file  in  front  of 
him  was  the  young  man  who  had  spoken  to 
him  of  hospitals  and  something  of  a  wife  and 
child. 


THE  FIFTH  WHEEL  63 

"Sorry  to  see  you  back  again,"  said  the 
young  man,  turning  to  speak  to  him.  "I  hoped 
you  had  struck  something  better  than  this.'* 

"Me?"  said  Thomas.  "Oh,  I  just  took  a  run 
around  the  block  to  keep  warm!  I  see  the 
public  ain't  lending  to  the  Lord  very  fast  to 
night." 

"In  this  kind  of  weather,"  said  the  young 
man,  "charity  avails  itself  of  the  proverb,  and 
both  begins  and  ends  at  home." 

And  now  the  Preacher  and  his  vehement 
lieutenant  struck  up  a  last  hymn  of  petition  to 
Providence  and  man.  Those  of  the  Bed  Liners 
whose  windpipes  still  registered  above  32  de 
grees  hopelessly  and  tunelessly  joined  in. 

In  the  middle  of  the  second  verse  Thomas  saw 
a  sturdy  girl  with  wind-tossed  drapery  battling 
against  the  breeze  and  coming  straight  toward 
him  from  the  opposite  sidewalk.  "Annie!"  he 
yelled,  and  ran  toward  her. 

"You  fool,  you  fool!"  she  cried,  weeping  and 
laughing,  and  hanging  upon  his  neck,  "why  did 
you  do  it?" 

"The  Stuff,"  explained  Thomas  briefly.  "You 
know.  But  subsequently  nit.  Not  a  drop." 
He  led  her  to  the  curb.  "How  did  you  happen 
to  see  me?" 

"I  came  to  find  you,"  said  Annie,  holding 
tight  to  his  sleeve.  "Oh,  you  big  fool!  Pro 
fessor  Cherubusco  told  us  that  we  might  find 
you  here." 

"Professor  Ch—  Don't  know  the  guy. 
What  saloon  does  he  work  in?" 


64  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

"He's  a  clearvoyant,  Thomas;  the  greatest 
in  the  world.  He  found  you  with  the  Chaldean 
telescope,  he  said." 

"He's  a  liar,"  said  Thomas.  "I  never  had  it. 
He  never  saw  me  have  anybody's  telescope." 

"And  he  said  you  came  in  a  chariot  with  five 
wheels  or  something." 

"Annie,"  said  Thomas  solicitously,  "you're 
giving  me  the  wheels  now.  If  I  had  a  chariot 
I'd  have  gone  to  bed  in  it  long  ago.  And  with 
out  any  singing  and  preaching  for  a  nightcap, 
either." 

"Listen,  you  big  fool.  The  Missis  says  she'll 
take  you  back.  I  begged  her  to.  But  you 
must  behave.  And  you  can  go  up  to  the  house 
to-night;  and  your  old  room  over  the  stable  is 
ready." 

"Great!"  said  Thomas  earnestly.  "You  are 
It,  Annie.  But  when  did  these  stunts  happen  ?" 

"To-night  at  Professor  Cherubusco's.  He 
sent  his  automobile  for  the  Missis,  and  she  took 
me  along.  I've  been  there  with  her  before." 

"What's  the  professor's  line?" 

"He's  a  clearvoyant  and  a  witch.  The 
Missis  consults  him.  He  knows  everything. 
But  he  hasn't  done  the  Missis  any  good  yet, 
though  she's  paid  him  hundreds  of  dollars. 
But  he  told  us  that  the  stars  told  him  we  could 
find  you  here." 

"What's  the  old  lady  want  this  cherry-buster 
to  do?" 

"That's  a  family  secret,"  said  Annie.  "And 
now  you've  asked  enough  questions.  Come  on 
home,  you  big  fool." 


THE  FIFTH  WHEEL  65 

They  had  moved  but  a  little  way  up  the  street 
when  Thomas  stopped. 

"Got  any  dough  with  you,  Annie?"  he  asked. 

Annie  looked  at  him  sharply. 

"Oh,  I  know  what  that  look  means,"  said 
Thomas.  "You're  wrong.  Not  another  drop. 
But  there's  a  guy  that  was  standing  next  to  me 
in  the  bed  line  over  there  that's  in  a  bad  shape. 
He's  the  right  kind,  and  he's  got  wives  or  kids 
or  something,  and  he's  on  the  sick  list.  No 
booze.  If  you  could  dig  up  half  a  dollar  for 
him  so  he  could  get  a  decent  bed  I'd  like  it." 

Annie's  fingers  began  to  wiggle  in  her  purse. 

"Sure,  I've  got  money,"  said  she.  "Lots  of 
it.  Twelve  dollars."  And  then  she  added, 
with  woman's  ineradicable  suspicion  of  vicarious 
benevolence:  "Bring  him  here  and  let  me  see 
him  first." 

Thomas  went  on  his  mission.  The  wan  Bed 
Liner  came  readily  enough.  As  the  two  drew 
near,  Annie  looked  up  from  her  purse  and 
screamed: 

"Mr.  Walter Oh— Mr.  Walter!" 

"Is  that  you,  Annie?"  said  the  young  man 
weakly. 

"Oh,  Mr.  Walter! — and  the  Missis  hunting 
high  and  low  for  you!" 

"Does  mother  want  to  see  me?"  he  asked, 
with  a  flush  coming  out  on  his  pale  cheek. 

"She's  been  hunting  for  you  high  and  low. 
Sure,  she  wants  to  see  you.  She  wants  you  to 
come  home.  She's  tried  police  and  morgues  and 
lawyers  and  advertising  and  detectives  and 
rewards  and  everything.  And  then  she  took 


66  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

up  clearvoyants.  You'll  go  right  home,  won't 
you,  Mr.  Walter?" 

"Gladly,  if  she  wants  me,"  said  the  young 
man.  "Three  years  is  a  long  time.  I  suppose 
I'll  have  to  walk  up,  though,  unless  the  street 
cars  are  giving  free  rides.  I  used  to  walk  and 
beat  that  old  plug  team  of  bays  we  used  to  drive 
to  the  carriage.  Have  they  got  them  yet?" 

"They  have,"  said  Thomas,  feelingly.  "And 
they'll  have  'em  ten  years  from  IIOWT.  The  life 
of  the  royal  elephantibus  truckhorseibus  is  one 
hundred  and  forty-nine  years.  I'm  the  coach 
man.  Just  got  my  reappointment  five  minutes 
ago.  Let's  all  ride  up  in  a  surface  car — that 
is — er — if  Annie  will  pay  the  fares." 

On  the  Broadway  car  Annie  handed  each  one 
of  the  prodigals  a  nickel  to  pay  the  conductor. 

"Seems  to  me  you  are  mighty  reckless  the 
way  you  throw  large  sums  of  money  around," 
said  Thomas,  sarcastically. 

"In  that  purse,"  said  Annie,  decidedly,  "is 
exactly  $11.85.  I  shall  take  every  cent  of  it 
to-morrow  and  give  it  to  Professor  Cherubusco, 
the  greatest  man  in  the  world." 

"Well,"  said  Thomas,  "I  guess  he  must  be  a 
pretty  fly  guy  to  pipe  off  things  the  way  he  does. 
I'm  glad  his  spooks  told  him  where  you  could 
find  me.  If  you'll  give  me  his  address,  some 
day  I'll  go  up  there,  myself,  and  shake  his 
hand." 

Presently  Thomas  moved  tentatively  in  his 
seat,  and  thoughtfully  felt  an  abrasion  or  two 
on  his  knees  and  elbows. 

"Say,  Annie,"  said  he,  confidentially,  "maybe 


THE  FIFTH  WHEEL  67 

it's  one  of  the  last  dreams  of  the  booze,  but  I've 
a  kind  of  a  recollection  of  riding  in  an  auto 
mobile  with  a  swell  guy  that  took  me  to  a  house 
full  of  eagles  and  arc  lights.  He  fed  me  on 
biscuits  and  hot  air,  and  then  kicked  me  down 
the  front  steps.  If  it  was  the  d  t'sy  why  am  I 

5  j> 

so  sore: 

"Shut  up,  you  fool,"  said  Annie. 

"If  I  could  find  that  funny  guy's  house," 
said  Thomas,  in  conclusion,  "I'd  go  up  there 
some  day  and  punch  his  nose  for  him." 


VI 

THE  POET  AND  THE  PEASANT 

THE  other  day  a  poet  friend  of  mine,  who  has 
lived  in  close  communion  with  nature  all  his 
life,  wrote  a  poem  and  took  it  to  an  editor. 

It  was  a  living  pastoral,  full  of  the  genuine 
breath  of  the  fields,  the  song  of  birds,  and  the 
pleasant  chatter  of  trickling  streams. 

When  the  poet  called  again  to  see  about  it, 
with  hopes  of  a  beefsteak  dinner  in  his  heart, 
it  was  handed  back  to  him  with  the  comment: 

"Too  artificial." 

Several  of  us  met  over  spaghetti  and  Dutchess 
County  chianti,  and  swallowed  indignation  with 
slippery  forkfuls. 

And  there  we  dug  a  pit  for  the  editor.  With 
us  was  Conant,  a  well-arrived  writer  of  fiction — 
a  man  who  had  trod  on  asphalt  all  his  life,  and 
who  had  never  looked  upon  bucolic  scenes  ex 
cept  with  sensations  of  disgust  from  the  windows 
of  express  trains. 

Conant  wrote  a  poem  and  called  it  "The  Doe 
and  the  Brook."  It  was  a  fine  specimen  of  the 
kind  of  work  you  would  expect  from  a  poet  who 
had  strayed  with  Amaryllis  only  as  far  as  the 
florist's  windows,  and  whose  sole  ornithological 
discussion  had  been  carried  on  with  a  waiter. 

68 


THE  POET  AND  THE  PEASANT  69 

Conant  signed  this  poem,  and  we  sent  it  to  the 
same  editor. 

But  this  has  very  little  to  do  with  the  story. 

Just  as  the  editor  was  reading  the  first  line  of 
the  poem,  on  the  next  morning,  a  being  stumbled 
off  the  West  Shore  ferryboat,  and  loped  slowly 
up  Forty-second  Street. 

The  invader  was  a  young  man  with  light  blue 
eyes,  a  hanging  lip,  and  hair  the  exact  color  of 
the  little  orphan's  (afterward  discovered  to  be 
the  earl's  daughter)  in  one  of  Mr.  Blaney's 
plays.  His  trousers  were  corduroy,  his  coat 
short-sleeved,  with  buttons  in  the  middle  of  his 
back.  One  bootleg  was  outside  the  corduroys. 
You  looked  expectantly,  though  in  vain,  at  his 
straw  hat  for  ear  holes,  its  shape  inaugurating 
the  suspicion  that  it  had  been  ravaged  from  a 
former  equine  possessor.  In  his  hand  was  a 
valise — description  of  it  is  an  impossible  task; 
a  Boston  man  would  not  have  carried  his  lunch 
and  law  books  to  his  office  in  it.  And  above  one 
ear,  in  his  hair,  was  a  wisp  of  hay — the  rustic's 
letter  of  credit,  his  badge  of  innocence,  the  last 
clinging  touch  of  the  Garden  of  Eden  lingering 
to  shame  the  gold-brick  men. 

Knowingly,  smilingly,  the  city  crowds  passed 
him  by.  They  saw  the  raw  stranger  stand  in 
the  gutter  and  stretch  his  neck  at  the  tall  build 
ings.  At  this  they  ceased  to  smile,  and  even 
to  look  at  him.  It  had  been  done  so  often.  A 
few  glanced  at  the  antique  valise  to  see  what 
Coney  "attraction"  or  brand  of  chewing  gum 
he  might  be  thus  dinning  into  his  memory.  But 
for  the  most  part  he  was  ignored.  Even  the 


70  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

newsboys  looked  bored  when  he  scampered  like 
a  circus  clown  out  of  the  way  of  cabs  and  street 
cars. 

At  Eighth  Avenue  stood  "  Bunco  Harry,"  with 
his  dyed  mustache  and  shiny,  good-natured 
eyes.  Harry  was  too  good  an  artist  not  to  be 
pained  at  the  sight  of  an  actor  overdoing  his 
part.  He  edged  up  to  the  countryman,  who 
had  stopped  to  open  his  mouth  at  a  jewelry 
store  window,  and  shook  his  head. 

"Too  thick,  pal,"  he  said,  critically — "too 
thick  by  a  couple  of  inches.  I  don't  know  what 
your  lay  is;  but  you've  got  the  properties  on  too 
thick.  That  hay,  now — why,  they  don't  even 
allow  that  on  Proctor's  circuit  any'more." 

"I  don't  understand  you,  mister,"  said  the 
green  one.  "I'm  not  lookin'  for  any  circus. 
I've  just  run  down  from  Ulster  County  to  look 
at  the  town,  bein'  that  the  hayin's  over  with. 
Gosh!  but  it's  a  whopper.  I  thought  Pough- 
keepsie  was  some  pumpkins;  but  this  here  town 
is  five  times  as  big." 

"Oh,  well,"  said  "Eurico  Harry,"  raising  his 
eyebrows,  "I  didn't  mean  to  butt  in.  You 
don't  have  to  tell.  I  thought  you  ought  to 
tone  down  a  little,  so  I  tried  to  put  you  wise. 
Wish  you  success  at  your  graft,  whatever  it  is. 
Come  and  have  a  drink,  anyhow." 

"I  wouldn't  mind  having  a  glass  of  lager 
beer,"  acknowledged  the  other. 

They  went  to  a  cafe  frequented  by  men  with 
smooth  faces  and  shifty  eyes,  and  sat  at  their 
drinks. 

"I'm  glad  I  come  across  you,  mister,"  said 


THE  POET  AND  THE  PEASANT  71 

Haylocks.  "How'd  you  like  to  play  a  game  or 
two  of  seven-up?  I've  got  the  keerds." 

He  fished  them  out  of  Noah's  valise — a  rare, 
inimitable  deck,  greasy  with  bacon  suppers  and 
grimy  with,  the  soil  of  cornfields. 

"Bunco  Harry"  laughed  loud  and  briefly. 

"Not  for  me,  sport,"  he  said,  firmly.  "I 
don't  go  against  that  make-up  of  yours  for  a 
cent.  But  I  still  say  you've  overdone  it.  The 
Reubs  haven't  dressed  like  that  since  '79.  I 
doubt  if  you  could  work  Brooklyn  for  a  key- 
winding  watch  with  that  layout." 

"Oh,  you  needn't  think  I  ain't  got  the 
money,"  boasted  Haylocks.  He  drew  forth  a 
tightly  rolled  mass  of  bills  as  large  as  a  teacup, 
and  laid  it  on  the  table. 

"Got  that  for  my  share  of  grandmother's 
farm,"  he  announced.  "There's  $950  in  that 
roll.  Thought  I'd  come  to  the  city  and  look 
around  for  a  likely  business  to  go  into." 

"Bunco  Harry"  took  up  the  roll  of  money 
and  looked  at  it  with  almost  respect  in  his 
smiling  eyes. 

"I've  seen  worse,"  he  said,  critically.  "But 
you'll  never  do  it  in  them  clothes.  You  want 
to  get  light  tan  shoes  and  a  black  suit  and  a 
straw  hat  with  a  colored  band,  and  talk  a  good 
deal  about  Pittsburg  and  freight  differentials, 
and  drink  sherry  for  breakfast  in  order  to  work 
oft  phony  stuff"  like  that." 

"What's  his  line?"  asked  two  or  three  shifty- 
eyed  men  of  "Bunco  Harry"  after  Haylocks 
had  gathered  up  his  impugned  money  and  de 
parted. 


72  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

"The  queer,  I  guess,"  said  Harry.  "Or  else 
he's  one  of  Jerome's  men.  Or  some  guy  with  a 
new  graft.  He's  too  much  hayseed.  Maybe 
that  his — I  wonder  now — oh,  no,  it  couldn't  have 
been  real  money." 

Haylocks  wandered  on.  Thirst  probably 
assailed  him  again,  for  he  dived  into  a  dark 
groggery  on  a  side  street  and  bought  beer. 
Several  sinister  fellows  hung  upon  one  end  of 
the  bar.  At  first  sight  of  him  their  eyes  bright 
ened;  but  when  his  insistent  and  exaggerated 
rusticity  became  apparent  their  expressions 
changed  to  wary  suspicion. 

Haylocks  swung  his  valise  across  the  bar. 

"Keep  that  a  while  for  me,  mister,"  he  said, 
chewing  at  the  end  of  a  virulent  claybank  cigar. 

"I'll  be  back  after  I  knock  around  a  spell. 
And  keep  your  eye  on  it,  for  there's  $950  inside 
of  it,  though  maybe  you  wouldn't  think  so  to 
look  at  me." 

Somewhere  outside  a  phonograph  struck  up  a 
band  piece,  and  Haylocks  was  off  for  it,  his  coat- 
tail  buttons  flopping  in  the  middle  of  his  back. 

"Divvy,  Mike,"  said  the  men  hanging  upon 
the  bar,  winking  openly  at  one  another. 

"Honest,  now,"  said  the  bartender,  kicking 
the  valise  to  one  side.  "You  don't  think  I'd 
fall  to  that,  do  you  ?  Anybody  can  see  he  ain't 
no  jay.  One  of  McAdoo-'s  come-on  squad,  I 
guess.  He's  a  shine  if  he  made  himself  up. 
There  ain't  no  parts  of  the  country  now  where 
they  dress  like  that  since  they  run  rural  free 
delivery  to  Providence,  Rhode  Island.  If  he's 
got  nine-fifty  in  that  valise  it's  a  ninety-eight 


THE  POET  AND  THE  PEASANT  73 

cent  Waterbury  that's  stopped  at  ten  minutes 
to  ten." 

When  Haylocks  had  exhausted  the  resources 
of  Mr.  Edison  to  amuse  he  returned  for  his 
valise.  And  then  down  Broadway  he  galli 
vanted,  culling  the  sights  with  his  eager  blue 
eyes.  But  still  and  evermore  Broadway  re 
jected  him  with  curt  glances  and  sardonic 
smiles.  He  was  the  oldest  of  the  "gags"  that 
the  city  must  endure.  He  was  so  flagrantly 
impossible,  so  ultra  rustic,  so  exaggerated  be 
yond  the  most  freakish  products  of  the  barn 
yards,  the  hayfield,  and  the  vaudeville  stage,  that 
he  excited  only  weariness  and  suspicion.  And 
the  wisp  of  hay  in  his  hair  was  so  genuine,  so 
fresh  and  redolent  of  the  meadows,  so  clamor 
ously  rural  that  even  a  shell-game  man  would 
have  put  up  his  peas  and  folded  his  table  at  the 
sight  of  it. 

Haylocks  seated  himself  upon  a  flight  of  stone 
steps  and  once  more  exhumed  his  roll  of  yellow 
backs  from  the  valise.  The  outer  one,  a  twenty, 
he  shucked  off  and  beckoned  to  a  newsboy. 

"Son,"  said  he,  "run  somewhere  and  get  this 
changed  for  me.  I'm  mighty  nigh  out  of 
chicken  feed.  I  guess  you'll  get  a  nickel  if 
you'll  hurry  up." 

A  hurt  look  appeared  through  the  dirt  on 
the  newsy's  face. 

"Aw,  watchert'ink!  G'wan  and  get  yer 
funny  bill  changed  yerself.  Dey  ain't  no  farm 
clothes  yer  got  on.  G'wan  wit  yer  stage 
money." 

On  a  corner  lounged  a  keen-eyed  steerer  for  a 


74  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

gambling-house.  He  saw  Haylocks,  and  his  ex 
pression  suddenly  grew  cold  and  virtuous. 

"Mister,"  said  the  rural  one.  "I've  heard 
of  places  in  this  here  town  where  a  fellow  could 
have  a  good  game  of  old  sledge  or  peg  a  card 
at  keno.  I  got  $950  in  this  valise,  and  I  come 
down  from  old  Ulster  to  see  the  sights.  Know 
where  a  fellow  could  get  action  on  about  $9 
or  $10?  I'm  goin'  to  have  some  sport,  and  then 
maybe  I'll  buy  out  a  business  of  some  kind." 

The  steerer  looked  pained,  and  investigated  a 
white  speck  on  his  left  forefinger  nail. 

"Cheese  it,  old  man,"  he  murmured,  re 
proachfully.  "The  Central  Office  must  be 
bughouse  to  send  you  out  looking  like  such  a 
gillie.  You  couldn't  get  within  two  blocks  of  a 
sidewalk  crap  game  in  them  Tony  Pastor  props. 
The  recent  Mr.  Scotty  from  Death  Valley  has 
got  you  beat  a  crosstown  block  in  the  way  of 
Elizabethan  scenery  and  mechanical  accessories. 
Let  it  be  skiddoo  for  yours.  Nay,  I  know  of 
no  gilded  halls  wrhere  one  may  bet  a  patrol 
wagon  on  the  ace." 

Rebuffed  again  by  the  great  city  that  is  so 
swift  to  detect  artificialities,  Haylocks  sat  upon 
the  curb  and  presented  his  thoughts  to  hold  a 
conference. 

"It's  my  clothes,"  said  he;  "durned  if  it  ain't. 
They  think  I'm  a  hayseed  and  won't  have 
nothin'  to  do  with  me.  Nobody  never  made 
fun  of  this  hat  in  Ulster  County.  I  guess  if 
you  want  folks  to  notice  you  in  New  York 
you  must  dress  up  like  they  do." 

So  Haylocks  went  shopping  in  the  bazaars 


THE  POET  AND  THE  PEASANT  75 

where  men  spake  through  their  noses  and 
rubbed  their  hands  and  ran  the  tape  line 
ecstatically  over  the  bulge  in  his  inside  pocket 
where  reposed  a  red  nubbin  of  corn  with  an 
even  number  of  rows.  And  messengers  bearing 
parcels  and  boxes  streamed  to  his  hotel  on 
Broadway  within  the  lights  of  Long  Acre. 

At  9  o'clock  in  the  evening  one  descended  to 
the  sidewalk  whom  Ulster  County  would  have 
foresworn.  Bright  tan  were  his  shoes;  his  hat 
the  latest  block.  His  light  gray  trousers  were 
deeply  creased;  a  gay  blue  silk  handkerchief 
flapped  from  the  breast  pocket  of  his  elegant 
English  walking  coat.  His  collar  might  have 
graced  a  laundry  window;  his  blond  hair  was 
trimmed  close;  the  wisp  of  hay  was  gone. 

For  an  instant  he  stood,  resplendent,  with  the 
leisurely  air  of  a  boulevardier  concocting  in  his 
mind  the  route  for  his  evening  pleasures.  And 
then  he  turned  down  the  gay,  bright  street  with 
the  easy  and  graceful  tread  of  a  millionaire. 

But  in  the  instant  that  he  had  paused  the 
wisest  and  keenest  eyes  in  the  city  had  en 
veloped  him  in  their  field  of  vision.  A  stout 
man  with  gray  eyes  picked  two  of  his  friends 
with  a  lift  of  his  eyebrows  from  the  row  of 
loungers  in  front  of  the  hotel. 

"The  juiciest  jay  I've  seen  in  six  months," 
said  the  man  with  gray  eyes.  "Come  along." 

It  was  half-past  eleven  when  a  man  galloped 
into  the  West  Forty-seventh  Street  Police 
Station  with  the  story  of  his  wrongs. 

"Nine  hundred  and  fifty  dollars,"  he  gasped, 
"all  my  share  of  grandmother's  farm." 


76  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

The  desk  sergeant  wrung  from  him  the  name 
Jabez  Bulltongue,  of  Locust  Valley  farm,  Ulster 
County,  and  then  began  to  take  descriptions 
of  the  strong-arm  gentlemen. 

When  Conant  went  to  see  the  editor  about 
the  fate  of  his  poem,  he  was  received  over  the 
head  of  the  office  boy  into  the  inner  office  that 
is  decorated  with  the  statuettes  by  Rodin  and 
J.  G.  Brown. 

"When  I  read  the  first  line  of  'The  Doe  and 
the  Brook/"  said  the  editor,  "I  knew  it  to  be 
the  wTork  of  one  whose  life  has  been  heart  to 
heart  with  Nature.  The  finished  art  of  the 
line  did  not  blind  me  to  that  fact.  To  use  a 
somewhat  homely  comparison,  it  was  as  if  a 
wild,  free  child  of  the  woods  and  fields  were  to 
don  the  garb  of  fashion  and  walk  down  Broad 
way.  Beneath  the  apparel  the  man  would 
show." 

"Thanks,"  said  Conant.  "I  suppos-e  the 
check  will  be  round  on  Thursday,  as  usual." 

The  morals  of  this  story  have  somehow  gotten 
mixed.  You  can  take  your  choice  of  "Stay  on 
the  Farm"  or  "Don't  Write  Poetry." 


VII 
THE  ROBE  OF  PEACE 

MYSTERIES  follow  one  another  so  closely  in 
a  great  city  that  the  reading  public  and  the 
friends  of  Johnny  Bellchambers  have  ceased  to 
marvel  at  his  sudden  and  unexplained  dis 
appearance  nearly  a  year  ago.  This  particular 
mystery  has  now  been  cleared  up,  but  the 
solution  is  so  strange  and  incredible  to  the 
mind  of  the  average  man  that  only  a  select  few 
who  were  in  close  touch  with  Bellchambers  will 
give  it  full  credence. 

Johnny  Bellchambers,  as  is  well  known,  be 
longed  to  the  intrinsically  inner  circle  of  the 
elite.  Without  any  of  the  ostentation  of  the 
fashionable  ones  who  endeavor  to  attract  notice 
by  eccentric  display  of  wealth  and  show  he  still 
was  au  fait  in  everything  that  gave  deserved 
lustre  to  his  high  position  in  the  ranks  of  society. 

Especially  did  he  shine  in  the  matter  of  dress. 
In  this  he  was  the  despair  of  imitators.  Always 
correct,  exquisitely  groomed,  and  possessed  of 
an  unlimited  wardrobe,  he  was  conceded  to  be 
the  best-dressed  man  in  New  York,  and,  there 
fore,  in  America.  There  was  not  a  tailor  in 
Gotham  who  would  not  have  deemed  it  a 
precious  boon  to  have  beer>  granted  the  privilege 

77 


78  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

of  making  Bellchambers'  clothes  without  a  cent 
of  pay.  As  he  wore  them,  they  would  have 
been  a  priceless  advertisement.  Trousers  were 
his  especial  passion.  Here  nothing  but  per 
fection  would  he  notice.  He  would  have  worn 
a  patch  as  quickly  as  he  would  have  overlooked 
a  wrinkle.  He  kept  a  man  in  his  apartments 
always  busy  pressing  his  ample  supply.  His 
friends  said  that  three  hours  was  the  limit  of 
time  that  he  would  wear  these  garments  without 
exchanging. 

Bellchambers  disappeared  very  suddenly. 
For  three  days  his  absence  brought  no  alarm  to 
his  friends,  and  then  they  began  to  operate  the 
usual  methods  of  inquiry.  All  of  them  failed. 
He  had  left  absolutely  no  trace  behind.  Then 
the  search  for  a  motive  was  instituted,  but  none 
was  found.  He  had  no  enemies,  he  had  no 
debts,  there  was  no  woman.  There  were 
several  thousand  dollars  in  his  bank  to  his 
credit.  He  had  never  showed  any  tendency 
toward  mental  eccentricity;  in  fact,  he  was  of  a 
particularly  calm  and  well-balanced  tempera 
ment.  Every  means  of  tracing  the  vanished 
man  was  made  use  of,  but  without  avail.  It 
was  one  of  those  cases — more  numerous  in  late 
years — where  men  seem  to  have  gone  out  like 
the  flame  of  a  candle,  leaving  not  even  a  trail 
of  smoke  as  a  witness. 

In  May,  Tom  Eyres  and  Lancelot  Gilliam, 
two  of  Bellchambers'  old  friends,  went  for  a 
little  run  on  the  other  side.  While  pottering 
around  in  Italy  and  Switzerland,  they  happened, 
one  day,  to  hear  of  a  monastery  in  the  Swiss 


THE  ROBE  OF  PEACE  79 

Alps  that  promised  something  outside  of  the 
ordinary  tourist-beguiling  attractions.  The 
monastery  was  almost  inaccessible  to  the 
average  sight-seer,  being  on  an  extremely  rugged 
and  precipitous  spur  of  the  mountains.  The 
attractions  it  possessed  but  did  not  advertise 
were,  first,  an  exclusive  and  divine  cordial  made 
by  the  monks  that  was  said  to  far  surpass 
benedictine  and  chartreuse.  Next  a  huge 
brass  bell  so  purely  and  accurately  cast  that  it 
had  not  ceased  sounding  since  it  was  first  rung 
three  hundred  years  ago.  Finally,  it  was  as 
serted  that  no  Englishman  had  ever  set  foot 
within  its  walls.  Eyres  and  Gilliam  decided 
that  these  three  reports  called  for  investigation. 

It  took  them  two  days  with  the  aid  of  two 
guides  to  reach  the  monastery  of  St.  Gondrau. 
It  stood  upon  a  frozen,  wind-swept  crag  with 
the  snow  piled  about  it  in  treacherous,  drifting 
masses.  They  were  hospitably  received  by  the 
brothers  whose  duty  it  was  to  entertain  the 
infrequent  guest.  They  drank  of  the  precious 
cordial,  finding  it  rarely  potent  and  reviving. 
They  listened  to  the  great,  ever-echoing  bell 
and  learned  that  they  were  pioneer  travelers, 
in  those  gray  stone  walls,  over  the  Englishman 
whose  restless  feet  have  trodden  nearly  every 
corner  of  the  earth. 

At  three  o'clock  on  the  afternoon  they 
arrived,  the  two  young  Gothamites  stood  with 
good  Brother  Cristofer  in  the  great,  cold  hall 
way  of  the  monastery  to  watch  the  monks 
march  past  on  their  way  to  the  refectory.  They 
came  slowly,  pacing  by  twos,  with  their  heads 


8o  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

bowed,  treading  noiselessly  with  sandaled  feet 
upon  the  rough  stone  flags.  As  the  procession 
slowly  filed  past,  Eyres  suddenly  gripped 
Gilliam  by  the  arm.  "Look,"  he  whispered, 
eagerly,  "  at  the  one  just  opposite  you  now — the 
one  on  this  side,  with  his  hand  at  his  waist — if 
that  isn't  Johnny  Bellchambers  then  I  never  saw 
him!'' 

Gilliam  saw  and  recognized  the  lost  glass  of 
fashion. 

"What  the  deuce,"  said  he,  wonderingly, 
"is  old  Bell  doing  here  ?  Tommy,  it  surely  can't 
be  he!  Never  heard  of  Bell  having  a  turn  for 
the  religious.  Fact  is,  I've  heard  him  say 
things  when  a  four-in-hand  didn't  seem  to  tie 
up  just  right  that  would  bring  him  up  for  court- 
martial  before  any  church." 

"It's  Bell,  without  a  doubt,"  said  Eyres, 
firmly,  "or  I'm  pretty  badly  in  need  of  an 
oculist.  But  think  of  Johnny  Bellchambers, 
the  Royal  High  Chancellor  of  swell  togs  and 
the  Mahatma  of  pink  teas,  up  here  in  cold 
storage  doing  penance  in  a  snuff-colored  bath 
robe  !  I  can't  get  it  straight  in  my  mind.  Let's 
ask  the  jolly  old  boy  that's  doing  the  honors." 

Brother  Cristofer  was  appealed  to  for  infor 
mation.  By  that  time  the  monks  had  passed 
into  the  refectory.  He  could  not  tell  to  which 
one  they  referred.  Bellchambers?  Ah,  the 
brothers  of  St.  Gondrau  abandoned  their 
worldly  names  when  they  took  the  vows.  Did 
the  gentlemen  wish  to  speak  with  one  of  the 
brothers?  If  they  would  come  to  the  refectory 
and  indicate  the  one  they  wished  to  see,  the 


THE  ROBE  OF  PEACE  81 

reverend  abbot  in  authority  would,  doubtless, 
permit  it. 

Eyres  and  Gilliam  went  into  the  dining  hall 
and  pointed  out  to  Brother  Cristofer  the  man 
they  had  seen.  Yes,  it  was  Johnny  Bell- 
chambers.  They  saw  his  face  plainly  now,  as 
he  sat  among  the  dingy  brothers,  never  looking 
up,  eating  broth  from  a  coarse,  brown  bowl. 

Permission  to  speak  to  one  of  the  brothers 
was  granted  to  the  two  travelers  by  the  abbot, 
and  they  waited  in  a  reception  room  for  him  to 
come.  When  he  did  come,  treading  softly  in 
his  sandals,  both  Eyres  and  Gilliam  looked  at 
him  in  perplexity  and  astonishment.  It  was 
Johnny  Bellchambers,  but  he  had  a  different 
look.  Upon  his  smooth-shaven  face  was  an 
expression  of  ineffable  peace,  of  rapturous 
attainment,  of  perfect  and  complete  happiness. 
His  form  was  proudly  erect,  his  eyes  shone  with 
a  serene  and  gracious  light.  He  was  as  neat 
and  well-groomed  as  in  the  old  New  York  days, 
but  how  differently  was  he  clad!  Now  he 
seemed  clothed  in  but  a  single  garment — a  long 
robe  of  rough  brown  cloth,  gathered  by  a  cord 
at  the  waist,  and  falling  in  straight,  loose  folds 
nearly  to  his  feet.  He  shook  hands  *with  his 
visitors  with  his  old  ease  and  grace  of  manner. 
If  there  was  any  embarrassment  in  that  meeting 
it  was  not  manifested  by  Johnny  Bellchambers. 
The  room  had  no  seats;  they  stood  to  converse. 

"Glad  to  see  you,  old  man,"  said  Eyres,  some 
what  awkwardly.  "Wasn't  expecting  to  find 
you  up  here.  Not  a  bad  idea,  though,  after  all. 
Society's  an  awful  sham.  Must  be  a  relief  to 


82  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

shake  the  giddy  whirl  and  retire  to — er — con 
templation  and — er— prayer  and  hymns,  and 
those  things." 

"Oh,  cut  that,  Tommy,"  said  Bellchambers, 
cheerfully.  "Don't  be  afraid  that  I'll  pass 
around  the  plate.  I  go  through  these  thing-um- 
bobs  with  the  rest  of  these  old  boys  because 
they  are  the  rules.  I'm  Brother  Ambrose  here, 
you  know.  I'm  given  just  ten  minutes  to  talk 
to  you  fellows.  That's  rather  a  new  design  in 
waistcoats  you  have  on,  isn't  it,  Gilliam?  Are 
they  wearing  those  things  on  Broadway  now?" 

"It's  the   same  old  Johnny,"   said   Gilliam, 
joyfully.     "What  the  devil — I  mean  why- 
Oil,  confound  it!  what  did  you  do  it  for,  old 
man?" 

"Peel  the  bathrobe,"  pleaded  Eyres,  almost 
tearfully,  "and  go  back  with  us.  The  old 
crowd'll  go  wild  to  see  you.  This  isn't  in  your 
line,  Bell.  I  know  half  a  dozen  girls  that  wore 
the  willow  on  the  quiet  when  you  shook  us  in 
that  unaccountable  way.  Hand  in  your  resig 
nation,  or  get  a  dispensation,  or  whatever  you 
have  to  do  to  get  a  release  from  this  ice  factory. 
You'll  get  catarrh  here,  Johnny — and—  My 
God!  you  haven't  any  socks  on!" 

Bellchambers  looked  down  at  his  sandaled 
feet  and  smiled. 

"You  fellows  don't  understand,"  he  said, 
soothingly.  "It's  nice  of  you  to  want  me  to  go 
back,  but  the  old  life  \vill  never  know  me  again. 
I  have  reached  here  the  goal  of  all  my  am 
bitions.  I  am  entirely  happy  and  contented. 
Here  I  shall  remain  for  the  remainder  of  my 


THE  ROBE  OF  PEACE  83 

days.  You  see  this  robe  that  I  wear?"  Bell- 
chambers  caressingly  touched  the  straight- 
hanging  garment:  "At  last  I  have  found  some 
thing  that  will  not  bag  at  the  knees.  I  have 
attained— 

At  that  moment  the  deep  boom  of  the  great 
brass  bell  reverberated  through  the  monastery. 
It  must  have  been  a  summons  to  immediate 
devotions,  for  Brother  Ambrose  bowed  his 
head,  turned  and  left  the  chamber  without 
another  word.  A  slight  wave  of  his  hand  as  he 
passed  through  the  stone  doorway  seemed  to 
say  a  farewell  to  his  old  friends.  They  left  the 
monastery  without  seeing  himf  again. 

And  this  is  the  story  that  Tommy  Eyres  and 
Lancelot  Gilliam  brought  back  with  them  from 
their  latest  European  tour. 


VIII 
THE  GIRL  AND  THE  GRAFT 

THE  other  day  I  ran  across  my  old  friend 
Ferguson  Pogue.  Pogue  is  a  conscientious 
grafter  of  the  highest  type.  His  headquarters 
is  the  Western  Hemisphere,  and  his  line  of  busi 
ness  is  anything  from  speculating  in  town  lots 
on  the  Great  Staked  Plains  to  selling  wooden 
toys  in  Connecticut,  made  by  hydraulic  pressure 
from  nutmegs  ground  to  a  pulp. 

Now  and  then  when  Pogue  has  made  a  good 
haul  he  comes  to  New  York  for  a  rest.  He  says 
the  jug  of  wine  and  loaf  of  bread  and  Thou  in 
the  wilderness  business  is  about  as  much  rest 
and  pleasure  to  him  as  sliding  down  the  bumps 
at  Coney  would  be  to  President  Taft.  "Give 
me,"  says  Pogue,  "a  big  city  for  my  vacation. 
Especially  New  York.  I'm  not  much  fond  of 
New  Yorkers,  and  Manhattan  is  about  the  only 
place  on  the  globe  where  I  don't  find  any." 

While  in  the  metropolis  Pogue  can  always  be 
found  at  one  of  two  places.  One  is  a  little 
second-hand  bookshop  on  Fourth  Avenue,  where 
he  reads  books  about  his  hobbies,  Mahometan- 
ism  and  taxidermy.  I  found  him  at  the  other — 
his  hall  bedroom  in  Eighteenth  Street — where  he 
sat  in  his  stocking  feet  trying  to  pluck  "The 

84 


THE  GIRL  AND  THE  GRAFT  85 

Banks  of  the  Wabash"  out  of  a  small  zither. 
Four  years  he  has  practised  this  tune  without 
arriving  near  enough  to  cast  the  longest  trout 
line  to  the  water's  edge.  On  the  dresser  lay  a 
blued-steel  Colt's  forty-five  and  a  tight  roll  of 
tens  and  twenties  large  enough  around  to  belong 
to  the  spring  rattlesnake-story  class.  A  chamber 
maid  with  a  room-cleaning  air  fluttered  near  by 
in  the  hall,  unable  to  enter  or  to  flee,  scandalized 
by  the  stocking  feet,  aghast  at  the  Colt's,  yet 
powerless,  with  her  metropolitan  instincts,  to 
remove  herself  beyond  the  magic  influence  of 
the  yellow-hued  roll. 

I  sat  on  his  trunk  while  Ferguson  Pogue 
talked.  No  one  could  be  franker  or  more  can 
did  in  his  conversation.  Beside  his  expression 
the  cry  of  Henry  James  for  lacteal  nourishment 
at  the  age  of  one  month  would  have  seemed  like 
a  Chaldean  cryptogram.  He  told  me  stories 
of  his  profession  with  pride,  for  he  considered  it 
an  art.  And  I  was  curious  enough  to  ask  him 
whether  he  had  known  any  women  who  followed 
it. 

"Ladies?"  said  Pogue,  with  Western  chivalry. 
"Well,  not  to  any  great  extent.  They  don't 
amount  to  much  in  special  lines  of  graft, 
because  they're  all  so  busy  in  general  lines. 
WThat?  Why,  they  have  to.  Who's  got  the 
money  in  the  world  ?  The  men.  Did  you  ever 
know  a  man  to  give  a  woman  a  dollar  without 
any  consideration?  A  man  will  shell  out  his 
dust  to  another  man  free  and  easy  and  gratis. 
But  if  he  drops  a  penny  in  one  of  the  machines 
run  by  the  Madam  Eve's  Daughters'  Amalga- 


86  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

mated  Association  and  the  pineapple  chewing 
gum  don't  fall  out  when  he  pulls  the  lever  you 
can  hear  him  kick  to  the  superintendent  four 
blocks  away.  Man  is  the  hardest  proposition 
a  woman  has  to  go  up  against.  He's  a  low- 
grade  one,  and  she  has  to  work  overtime  to 
make  him  pay.  Two  times  out  of  five  she's 
salted.  She  can't  put  in  crushers  and  costly 
machinery.  He'd  notice  'em  and  be  onto  the 
game.  They  have  to  pan  out  what  they  get, 
and  it  hurts  their  tender  hands.  Some  of  'em 
are  natural  sluice  troughs  and  can  carry  out 
$1,000  to  the  ton.  The  dry-eyed  ones  have  to 
depend  on  signed  letters,  false  hair,  sympathy, 
the  kangaroo  walk,  cowhide  whips,  ability  to 
cook,  sentimental  juries,  conversational  powers, 
silk  underskirts,  ancestry,  rouge,  anonymous 
letters,  violet  sachet  powders,  witnesses,  re 
volvers,  pneumatic  forms,  carbolic  acid,  moon 
light,  cold  cream  and  the  evening  newspapers." 

"You  are  outrageous,  Ferg,"  I  said.  "Surely 
there  is  none  of  this  *  graft/  as  you  call  it,  in  a 
perfect  and  harmonious  matrimonial  union!" 

"Well,"  said  Pogue,  "nothing  that  would 
justify  you  every  time  in  calling  up  Police 
Headquarters  and  ordering  out  the  reserves  and 
a  vaudeville  manager  on  a  dead  run.  But  it's 
this  way:  Suppose  you're  a  Fifth  Avenue 
millionaire,  soaring  high,  on  the  right  side  of 
copper  and  cappers. 

"You  come  home  at  night  and  bring  a 
$9,000,000  diamond  brooch  to  the  lady  who's 
staked  you  for  a  claim.  You  hand  it  over. 
She  says,  'Oh,  George!'  and  looks  to  see  if  it's 


THE  GIRL  AND  THE  GRAFT  87 

backed.  She  comes  up  and  kisses  you.  You've 
waited  for  it.  You  get  it.  All  right.  It's 
graft. 

"But  I'm  telling  you  about  Artemisia  Blye. 
She  was  from  Kansas  and  she  suggested  corn 
in  all  of  its  phases.  Her  hair  was  as  yellow  as 
the  silk;  her  form  was  as  tall  and  graceful  as  a 
stalk  in  the  low  grounds  during  a  wet  summer; 
her  eyes  were  as  big  and  startling  as  bunions, 
and  green  was  her  favorite  color. 

"On  my  last  trip  into  the  cool  recesses  of 
your  sequestered  city  I  met  a  human  named 
Vaucross.  He  was  worth — that  is,  he  had  a 
million.  He  told  me  he  was  in  business  on  the 
street.  'A  sidewalk  merchant?'  says  I,  sar 
castic.  'Exactly,'  says  he.  'Senior  partner 
of  a  paving  concern.' 

"I  kind  of  took  to  him.  For  this  reason,  I 
met  him  on  Broadway  one  night  when  I  was  out 
of  heart,  luck,  tobacco,  and  place.  He  was  all 
silk  hat,  diamonds,  and  front.  He  was  all  front. 
If  you  had  gone  behind  him  you  would  have  only 
looked  yourself  in  the  face.  I  looked  like  a 
cross  between  Count  Tolstoy  and  a  June 
lobster.  I  was  out  of  luck.  I  had — but  let 
me  lay  my  eyes  on  that  dealer  again. 

"Vaucross  stopped  and  talked  to  me  a  few 
minutes  and  then  he  took  me  to  a  high-toned 
restaurant  to  eat  dinner.  There  was  music, 
and  then  some  Beethoven,  and  Bordelaise 
sauce,  and  cussing  in  French  and  frangipani, 
and  some  hauteur  and  cigarettes.  When  I  am 
flush  I  know  them  places. 

"I  declare,  I  must  have  looked  as  bad  as  a 


88  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

magazine  artist  sitting  there  without  any  money 
and  my  hair  all  rumpled  like  I  was  booked  to 
read  a  chapter  from  'Elsie's  School  Days'  at  a 
Brooklyn  Bohemian  smoker.  But  Vaucross 
treated  me  like  a  bear  hunter's  guide.  He 
wasn't  afraid  of  hurting  the  waiter's  feelings. 
'"Mr.  Pogue,'  he  explains  to  me,  'I  am  using 
you.' 

"Go  on,'  says  I;  'I  hope  you  don't  wake  up.' 
"And  then  he  tells  me,  you  know,  the  kind  of 
man  he  was.  He  was  a  New  Yorker.  His 
W7hole  ambition  was  to  be  noticed.  He  wanted 
to  be  conspicuous.  He  wanted  people  to  point 
him  out  and  bow  to  him,  and  tell  others  who  he 
was.  He  said  it  had  been  the  desire  of  his  life 
always.  He  didn't  have  but  a  million,  so  he 
couldn't  attract  attention  by  spending  money. 
He  said  he  tried  to  get  into  public  notice  one 
time  by  planting  a  little  public  square  on  the 
east  side  with  garlic  for  free  use  of  the  poor; 
but  Carnegie  heard  of  it,  and  covered  it  over  at 
once  with  a  library  in  the  Gaelic  language. 
Three  times  he  had  jumped  in  the  way  of  auto 
mobiles;  but  the  only  result  was  five  broken  ribs 
and  a  notice  in  the  papers  that  an  unknown 
man,  five  feet  ten,  with  four  amalgam-filled 
teeth,  supposed  to  be  the  last  of  the  famous 
Red  Leary  gang,  had  been  run  over. 

"Ever  try  the  reporters?'  I  asked  him. 

"Last  month,'  says  Mr.  Vaucross,  'my  ex 
penditure  for  lunches  to  reporters  was  $124.80.' 

"Get  anything  out  of  that?'  I  asks. 

"'That  reminds  me,'  says  he;  'add  $8.50  for 
pepsin.  Yes,  I  got  indigestion.' 


THE  GIRL  AND  THE  GRAFT  89 

"How  am  I  supposed  to  push  along  your 
scramble  for  prominence?'  I  inquires.  'Con 
trast?' 

"Something  of  that  sort  to-night,'  says 
Vaucross.  'It  grieves  me;  but  I  am  forced  to 
resort  to  eccentricity.'  And  here  he  drops  his 
napkin  in  his  soup  and  rises  up  and  bows  to  a 
gent  who  is  devastating  a  potato  under  a  palm 
across  the  room. 

"'The  Police  Commissioner,'  says  my 
climber,  gratified.  "'Friend,'  says  I,  in  a 
hurry,  'have  ambitions  but  don't  kick  a  rung 
out  of  your  ladder.  When  you  use  me  as  a 
stepping  stone  to  salute  the  police  you  spoil  my 
appetite  on  the  grounds  that  I  may  be  degraded 
and  incriminated.  Be  thoughtful.' 

"At  the  Quaker  City  squab  en  casserole  the 
idea  about  Artemisia  Blye  comes  to  me. 

"Suppose  I  can  manage  to  get  you  in  the 
papers,'  says  I — 'a  column  or  two  every  day  in 
all  of  'em  and  your  picture  in  most  of  'em  for  a 
week.  How  much  would  it  be  worth  to  you?' 
'Ten  thousand  dollars,'  says  Vaucross,  warm 
in  a  minute.  'But  no  murder,'  says  he;  'and 
I  won't  wear  pink  pants  at  a  cotillon.' 

"I  wouldn't  ask  you  to,'  says  I.  'This  is 
honorable,  stylish,  and  unefFeminate.  Tell  the 
waiter  to  bring  a  demi  tasse  and  some  other 
beans,  and  I  will  disclose  to  you  the  opus 
moderandi.' 

"We  closed  the  deal  an  hour  later  in  the 
rococo  rouge  et  noise  room.  I  telegraphed  that 
night  to  Miss  Artemisia  in  Salina.  She  took  a 
couple  of  photographs  and  an  autograph  letter 


90  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

to  an  elder  in  the  Fourth  Presbyterian  Church 
in  the  morning,  and  got  some  transportation 
and  $80.  She  stopped  in  Topeka  long  enough 
to  trade  a  flashlight  interior  and  a  valentine  to 
the  vice-president  of  a  trust  company  for  a 
mileage  book  and  a  package  of  five-dollar  notes 
with  $250  scrawled  on  the  band. 

"The  fifth  evening  after  she  got  my  wire  she 
was  waiting,  all  decolletee  and  dressed  up,  for 
me  and  Vaucross  to  take  her  to  dinner  in  one 
of  these  New  York  feminine  apartment  houses 
where  a  man  can't  get  in  unless  he  plays  bezique 
and  smokes  depilatory  powder  cigarettes. 

"She's  a  stunner,'  says  Vaucross  when  he 
saw  her.  *  They '11  give  her  a  two-column  cut 
sure.' 

"This  was  the  scheme  the  three  of  us  con 
cocted.  It  was  business  straight  through. 
Vaucross  was  to  rush  Miss  Blye  with  all  the 
style  and  display  and  emotion  he  could  for  a 
month.  Of  course,  that  amounted  to  nothing 
as  far  as  his  ambitions  were  concerned.  The 
sight  of  a  man  in  a  white  tie  and  patent  leather 
pumps  pouring  greenbacks  through  the  large 
end  of  a  cornucopia  to  purchase  nutriment  and 
heartsease  for  tall,  willowy  blondes  in  New  York 
is  as  common  a  sight  as  blue  turtles  in  delirium 
tremens.  But  he  was  to  write  her  love  letters — 
the  worst  kind  of  love  letters,  such  as  your  wife 
publishes  after  }TOU  are  dead — every  day.  At 
the  end  of  the  month  he  was  to  drop  her,  and 
she  would  bring  suit  for  $100,000  for  breach  of 
promise. 

"Miss  Artemisia  was  to  get  $10,000.     If  she 


THE  GIRL  AND  THE  GRAFT  91 

won  the  suit  that  was  all;  and  if  she  lost  she  was 
to  get  it  anyhow.  There  was  a  signed  contract 
to  that  effect. 

"Sometimes  they  had  me  out  with  'em,  but 
not  often.  I  couldn't  keep  up  to  their  style. 
She  used  to  pull  out  his  notes  and  criticize  them 
like  bills  of  lading. 

"'Say,  you!'  she'd  say.  'What  do  you  call 
this — Letter  to  a  Hardware  Merchant  from  His 
Nephew  on  Learning  that  His  Aunt  Has 
Nettlerash?  You  Eastern  duffers  know  as 
much  about  writing  love  letters  as  a  Kansas 
grasshopper  does  about  tugboats.  "My  dear 
Miss  Blye!" — wouldn't  that  put  pink  icing  and 
a  little  red  sugar  bird  on  your  bridal  cake  ?  How 
long  do  you  expect  to  hold  an  audience  in  a 
court-room  with  that  kind  of  stuff?  You  want 
to  get  down  to  business,  and  call  me  "Tweed- 
lums  Babe"  and  "Honeysuckle,"  and  sign 
yourself  "Mamma's  Own  Big  Bad  Puggy 
Wuggy  Boy"  if  you  want  any  limelight  to 
concentrate  upon  your  sparse  gray  hairs.  Get 
sappy.' 

"After  that  Vaucross  dipped  his  pen  in  the 
indelible  tabasco.  His  notes  read  like  some 
thing  or  other  in  the  original.  I  could  see  a  jury 
sitting  up,  and  women  tearing  one  another's 
hats  to  hear  'em  read.  And  I  could  see  piling 
up  for  Mr.  Vaucross  as  much  notoriousness  as 
Archbishop  Cranmer  or  the  Brooklyn  Bridge 
or  cheese-on-salad  ever  enjoyed.  He  seemed 
mighty  pleased  at  the  prospects. 

"They  agreed  on  a  night;  and  I  stood  on 
Fifth  Avenue  outside  a  solemn  restaurant  and 


92  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

watched  'em.  A  process-server  walked  in  and 
handed  Vaucross  the  papers  at  his  table.  Every 
body  looked  at  'em;  and  he  looked  as  proud  as 
Cicero.  I  went  back  to  my  room  and  lit  a  five- 
cent  cigar,  for  I  knew  the  $10,000  was  as  good 
as  ours. 

"About  two  hours  later  somebody  knocked 
at  my  door.  There  stood  Vaucross  and  Miss 
Artemisia,  and  she  was  clinging — yes,  sir, 
clinging — to  his  arm.  And  they  tells  me  they'd 
been  out  and  got  married.  And  they  articulated 
some  trivial  cadences  about  love  and  such.  And 
they  laid  down  a  bundle  on  the  table  and  said 
'Good-night'  and  left. 

"And  that's  why  I  say,"  concluded  Ferguson 
Pogue,  "that  a  woman  is  too  busy  occupied 
with  her  natural  vocation  and  instinct  of  graft 
such  as  is  given  her  for  self-preservation  and 
amusement  to  make  any  great  success  in 
special  lines." 

"What  was  in  the  bundle  that  they  left?"  I 
asked,  with  my  usual  curiosity. 

"Why,"  said  Ferguson,  "there  was  a  scalper's 
railroad  ticket  as  far  as  Kansas  City  and  two 
pairs  of  Mr.  Vaucross's  old  pants." 


IX 

THE  CALL  OF  THE  TAME 

WHEN  the  inauguration  was  accomplished — 
the  proceedings  were  made  smooth  by  the 
presence  of  the  Rough  Riders — it  is  well  known 
that  a  herd  of  those  competent  and  loyal  ex- 
warriors  paid  a  visit  to  the  big  city.  The  news 
paper  reporters  dug  out  of  their  trunks  the  old 
broad-brimmed  hats  and  leather  belts  that  they 
wear  to  North  Beach  fish  fries,  and  mixed  with 
the  visitors.  No  damage  was  done  beyond  the 
employment  of  the  wonderful  plural  "tender- 
feet"  in  each  of  the  scribe's  stories.  The  West 
erners  mildly  contemplated  the  skyscrapers  as 
high  as  the  third  story,  yawned  at  Broadway, 
hunched  down  in  the  big  chairs  in  hotel  cor 
ridors,  and  altogether  looked  as  bored  and 
dejected  as  a  member  of  Ye  Ancient  and 
Honorable  Artillery  separated  during  a  sham 
battle  from  his  valet. 

Out  of  this  sightseeing  delegation  of  good 
King  Teddy's  Gentlemen  of  the  Royal  Bear- 
hounds  dropped  one  Greenbrier  Nye,  of  Pin 
Feather,  Ariz. 

The  daily  cyclone  of  Sixth  Avenue's  rush 
hour  swept  him  away  from  the  company  of  his 
pardners  true.  The  dust  from  a  thousand 

93 


94  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

rustling  skirts  filled  his  eyes.  The  mighty  roar 
of  trains  rushing  across  the  sky  deafened  him. 
The  lightning-flash  of  twice  ten  hundred  beam 
ing  eyes  confused  his  vision.  { 

The  storm  was  so  sudden  and  tremendous 
that  Greenbrier's  first  impulse  was  to  lie  down 
and  grab  a  root.  And  then  he  remembered  that 
the  disturbance  was  human,  and  not  elemental; 
and  he  backed  out  of  it  with  a  grin  into  a  door 
way. 

The  reporters  had  written  that  but  for  the 
wide-brimmed  hats  the  West  was  not  visible 
upon  these  gauchos  of  the  North.  Heaven 
sharpen  their  eyes!  The  suit  of  black  diagonal, 
wrinkled  in  impossible  places;  the  bright  blue 
four-in-hand,  factory  tied;  the  low,  turned- 
down  collar,  pattern  of  the  days  of  Seymour 
and  Blair,  white  glazed  as  the  letters  on  the 
window  of  the  open-day-and-night-except-Sun- 
day  restaurants;  the  out-curve  at  the  knees  from 
the  straddle  grip;  the  peculiar  spread  of  the 
half-closed  right  thumb  and  fingers  from  the 
stiff  hold  upon  the  circling  lasso;  the  deeply 
absorbed  weather  tan  that  the  hottest  sun  of 
Cape  May  can  never  equal;  the  seldom-winking 
blue  eyes  that  unconsciously  divided  the  rushing 
crowds  into  fours,  as  though  they  were  being 
counted  out  of  a  corral;  the  segregated  loneli 
ness  and  solemnity  of  expression,  as  of  an 
emperor  or  of  one  whose  horizons  have  not 
intruded  upon  him  nearer  than  a  day's  ride — 
these  brands  of  the  West  were  set  upon  Green- 
brier  Nye.  Oh,  yes;  he  wore  a  broad-brimmed 
hat,  gentle  reader — just  like  those  the  Madison 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  TAME  95 

Square  Post  Office  mail  carriers  wear  when  they 
go  up  to  Bronx  Park  on  Sunday  afternoons. 

Suddenly  Greenbrier  Nye  jumped  into  the 
drifting  herd  of  metropolitan  cattle,  seized  upon 
a  man,  dragged  him  out  of  the  stream  and  gave 
him  a  buffet  upon  his  collar-bone  that  sent  him 
reeling  against  a  wall. 

The  victim  recovered  his  hat,  with  the  angry 
look  of  a  New  Yorker  who  has  suffered  an  out 
rage  and  intends  to  write  to  the  Trib.  about  it. 
But  he  looked  at  his  assailant,  and  knew  that 
the  blow  was  in  consideration  of  love  and 
affection  after  the  manner  of  the  West,  which 
greets  its  friends  with  contumely  and  uproar 
and  pounding  fists,  and  receives  its  enemies  in 
decorum  and  order,  such  as  the  judicious  placing 
of  the  welcoming  bullet  demands. 

"God  in  the  mountains!"  cried  Greenbrier, 
holding  fast  to  the  foreleg  of  his  cull.  "Can 
this  be  Longhorn  Merritt?" 

The  other  man  was — oh,  look  on  Broadway 
any  day  for  the  pattern — business  man — latest 
rolled-brim  derby — good  barber,  business,  di 
gestion,  and  tailor. 

"Greenbrier  Nye!"  he  exclaimed,  grasping 
the  hand  that  had  smitten  him.  "My  dear 
fellow!  So  glad  to  see  you!  How  did  you 
come  to — oh,  to  be  sure — the  inaugural  cere 
monies — I  remember  you  joined  the  Rough 
Riders.  You  must  come  and  have  luncheon 
with  me,  of  course." 

Greenbrier  pinned  him  sadly  but  firmly  to 
the  wall  with  a  hand  the  size,  shape,  and  color  of 
a  McClellan  saddle. 


96  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

"Longy,"  he  said,  in  a  melancholy  voice  that 
disturbed  traffic,  ''what  have  they  been  doing 
to  you?  You  act  just  like  a  citizen.  They 
done  made  you  into  an  inmate  of  the  city 
directory.  You  never  made  no  such  Johnny 
Branch  execration  of  yourself  as  that  out  on  the 
Gila.  'Come  and  have  lunching  with  me!' 
You  never  defined  grub  by  any  such  terms  of 
reproach  in  them  days." 

"I've  been  living  in  New  York  seven  years," 
said  Merritt.  "It's  been  eight  since  we  punched 
cows  together  in  Old  Man  Garcia's  outfit.  Well, 
let's  go  to  a  cafe,  anyhow.  It  sounds  good  to 
hear  it  called  'grub'  again." 

They  picked  their  way  through  the  crowd 
to  a  hotel,  and  drifted,  as  by  a  natural  law,  to 
the  bar. 

"Speak  up,"  invited  Greenbrier. 

"A  dry  Martini,"  said  Merritt. 

"Oh,  Lord!"  cried  Greenbrier;  "and  yet  me 
and  you  once  saw  the  same  pink  Gila  monsters 
crawling  up  the  walls  of  the  same  hotel  in 
Canon  Diablo!  A  dry — but  let  that  pass. 
Whiskey  straight — and  they're  on  you." 

Merritt  smiled,  and  paid. 

They  lunched  in  a  small  extension  of  the  din 
ing  room  that  connected  with  the  cafe.  Merritt 
dexterously  diverted  his  friend's  choice,  that 
hovered  over  ham  and  eggs,  to  a  puree  of  celery, 
a  salmon  cutlet,  a  partridge  pie,  and  a  desirable 
salad. 

"On  the  day,"  said  Greenbrier,  grieved  and 
thunderous,  "when  I  can't  hold  but  one  drink 
before  eating  when  I  meet  a  friend  I  ain't  seen 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  TAME  97 

in  eight  years  at  a  2  by  4  table  in  a  thirty-cent 
town  at  i  o'clock  on  the  third  day  of  the  week, 
I  want  nine  broncos  to  kick  me  forty  times  over 
a  64<>acre  section  of  land.  Get  them  statistics  ? ' 

"Right,  old  man,"  laughed  Merritt.  "Waiter, 
bring  an  absinthe  frappe  and — what's  yours, 
Greenbrier?" 

"Whiskey  straight,"  mourned  Nye.  "Out 
of  the  neck  of  a  bottle  you  used  to  take  it, 
Longy — straight  out  of  the  neck  of  a  bottle 
on  a  galloping  pony — Arizona  redeye,  not  this 
ab — oh,  what's  the  use?  They're  on  you." 

Merritt  slipped  the  wine  card  under  his  glass. 

"All  right.  I  suppose  you  think  I'm  spoiled 
by  the  city.  I'm  as  good  a  Westerner  as  you 
are,  Greenbrier;  but,  somehow,  I  can't  make 
up  my  mind  to  go  back  out  there.  New  York 
is  comfortable — comfortable.  I  make  a  good 
living,  and  I  live  it.  No  more  wet  blankets 
and  riding  herd  in  snowstorms,  and  bacon  and 
cold  coffee,  and  blowouts  once  in  six  months  for 
me.  I  reckon  I'll  hang  out  here  in  the  future. 
We'll  take  in  the  theatre  to-night,  Greenbrier, 
and  after  that  we'll  dine  at— 

"I'll  tell  you  what  you  are,  Merritt,"  said 
Greenbrier,  laying  one  elbow  in  his  salad  and 
the  other  in  his  butter.  "You  are  a  concen 
trated,  effete,  unconditional,  short-sleeved, 
gotch-eared  Miss  Sally  Walker.  God  made 
you  perpendicular  and  suitable  to  ride  straddle 
and  use  cuss  words  in  the  original.  Wherefore 
you  have  suffered  His  handiwork  to  elapse  by 
removing  yourself  to  New  York  and  putting 
on  little  shoes  tied  with  strings,  and  making 


98  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

faces  when  you  talk.  I've  seen  3-011  rope  and 
tie  a  steer  in  49^.  If  you  was  to  see  one  now 
you'd  write  to  the  Police  Commissioner  about 
it.  And  these  flapdoodle  drinks  that  you 
inoculate  your  system  with — these  little  essences 
of  cowslip  with  acorns  in  'em,  and  paregoric 
flip — they  ain't  anyways  in  assent  with  the 
cordiality  of  manhood.  I  hate  to  see  you  this 
way." 

"Well,  Greenbrier,"  said  Merritt,  with 
apology  in  his  tone,  "in  a  way  you  are  right. 
Sometimes  I  do  feel  like  I  was  being  raised  on 
the  bottle.  But,  I  tell  you,  New  York  is 
comfortable — comfortable.  There's  something 
about  it — the  sights  and  the  crowds,  and  the 
way  it  changes  every  day,  and  the  very  air  of 
it  that  seems  to  tie  a  one-mile-long  stake 
rope  around  a  man's  neck,  with  the  other  end 
fastened  somewhere  about  Thirty-fourth  Street. 
I  don't  know  what  it  is." 

"God  knows,"  said  Greenbrier,  sadly,  "and  I 
know.  The  East  has  gobbled  you  up.  You 
was  venison,  and  now  you're  veal.  You  put 
me  in  mind  of  a  japonica  in  a  window.  You've 
been  signed,  sealed,  and  diskivered.  Requiescat 
in  hoc  signo.  You  make  me  thirsty." 

"A  green  chartreuse  here,"  said  Merritt  to 
the  waiter. 

"Whiskey  straight,"  sighed  Greenbrier,  "and 
they're  on  you,  you  renegade  of  the  round-ups." 

"Guilty,  with  an  application  for  mercy,"  said 
Merritt.  "You  don't  know  how  it  is,  Green- 
brier.  It's  so  comfortable  here  that— 

"Please  loan  me  your  smelling  salts,"  pleaded 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  TAME  99 

Greenbrier.  "If  I  hadn't  seen  you  once  bluff 
three  bluffers  from  Mazatzal  City  with  an 
empty  gun  in  Phoenix 

Greenbrier's  voice  died  away  in  pure  grief. 

"Cigars!"  he  called  harshly  to  the  waiter,  to 
hide  his  emotion. 

"A  pack  of  Turkish  cigarettes  for  mine,"  said 
Merritt. 

"They're  on  you,"  chanted  Greenbrier,  strug 
gling  to  conceal  his  contempt. 

At  seven  they  dined  in  the  Where-to-Dine- 
Well  column. 

That  evening  a  galaxy  had  assembled  there. 
Bright  shone  the  lights  o'er  fair  women  and 

br Let  it  go,  anyhow- — brave  men.  The 

orchestra  played  charmingly.  Hardly  had  a 
tip  from  a  diner  been  placed  in  its  hands  by  a 
waiter  when  it  would  burst  forth  into  soniferous- 
ness.  The  more  beer  you  contributed  to  it  the 
more  Meyerbeer  it  gave  you.  Which  is  reci 
procity. 

Merritt  put  forth  exertions  on  the  dinner. 
Greenbrier  was  his  old  friend,  and  he  liked  him. 
He  persuaded  him  to  drink  a  cocktail. 

"I  take  the  horehound  tea,"  said  Greenbrier, 
"for  old  times'  sake.  But  I'd  prefer  whiskey 
straight.  They're  on  you." 

"  Right!"  said  Merritt.  "Now,  run  your  eye 
down  that  bill  of  fare  and  see  if  it  seems  to  hitch 
on  any  of  the  items." 

"Lay  me  on  my  lava  bed!"  said  Greenbrier, 
with  bulging  eyes.  "All  these  specimens  of 
nutriment  in  the  grub  wagon!  What's  this? 
Horse  with  the  heaves?  I  pass.  But  look 


ioo  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

along!  Here's  truck  for  twenty  round-ups  all 
spelled  out  in  different  sections.  Wait  till  I 
see." 

The  viands  ordered,  Merritt  turned  to  the 
wine  list. 

"This  Medoc  isn't  bad,"  he  suggested. 

" You're  the  doc,"  said  Greenbrier.  "I'd 
rather  have  whiskey  straight.  It's  on  you." 

Greenbrier  looked  around  the  room.  The 
waiter  brought  things  and  took  dishes  away. 
He  was  observing.  He  saw  a  New  York  restau 
rant  crowd  enjoying  itself. 

"How  was  the  range  when  you  left  the  Gila?" 
asked  Merritt. 

"Fine,"  said  Greenbrier.  "You  see  that  lady 
in  the  red  speckled  silk  at  that  table?  Well, 
she  could  warm  over  her  beans  at  my  campfire. 
Yes,  the  range  was  good.  She  looks  as  nice  as  a 
white  mustang  I  see  once  on  Black  River." 

When  the  coffee  came,  Greenbrier  put  one 
foot  on  the  seat  of  the  chair  next  to  him. 

"You  said  it  was  a  comfortable  town,  Longy," 
he  said,  meditatively.  "Yes,  it's  a  comfortable 
town.  It's  different  from  the  plains  in  a  blue 
norther.  What  did  you  call  that  mess  in  the 
crock  with  the  handle,  Longy?  Oh,  yes,  squabs 
in  a  cash  roll.  They're  worth  the  roll.  That 
white  mustang  had  just  such  a  way  of  turning 
his  head  and  shaking  his  mane — look  at  her, 
Longy.  If  I  thought  I  could  sell  out  my  ranch 
at  a  fair  price,  I  believe  I'd 

"Gyar — song!"  he  suddenly  cried,  in  a  voice 
that  paralyzed  every  knife  and  fork  in  the 
restaurant. 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  TAME  101 

The  waiter  dived  toward  the  table. 

"Two  more  of  them  cocktail  drinks,"  ordered 
Greenbrier. 

Merritt  looked  at  him  and  smiled  signifi 
cantly. 

"They're  on  me,"  said  Greenbrier,  blowing  a 
puff  of  smoke  to  the  ceiling. 


X 
THE  UNKNOWN  QUANTITY 

THE  poet  Longfellow — or  was  it  Confucius, 
the  inventor  of  wisdom  ? — remarked : 

"Life  is  real,  life  is  earnest; 
And  things  are  not  what  they  seem." 

As  mathematics  are — or  is:  thanks,  old 
subscriber! — the  only  just  rule  by  which  ques 
tions  of  life  can  be  measured,  let  us,  by  all 
means,  adjust  our  theme  to  the  straight  edge 
and  the  balanced  column  of  the  great  goddess 
Two-and-Two-Makes-Four.  Figures — unassail 
able  sums  in  addition — shall  be  set  over 
against  whatever  opposing  element  there  may 
be. 

A  mathematician,  after  scanning  the  above 
two  lines  of  poetry,  would  say:  "Ahem!  young 
gentlemen,  if  we  assume  that  X  plus — that  is, 
that  life  is  real — then  things  (all  of  which  life 
includes)  are  real.  Anything  that  is  real  is 
what  it  seems.  Then  if  we  consider  the 
proposition  that  *  things  are  not  what  they 
seem,'  why ; 

But  this  is  heresy,  ?nd  not  poesy.  We  woo 
the  sweet  nymph  Algebra;  we  would  conduct 


THE  UNKNOWN  QUANTITY  103 

you  into  the  presence  of  the  elusive,  seductive, 
pursued,  satisfying,  mysterious  X. 

Not  long  before  the  beginning  of  this  century, 
Septimus  Kinsolving,  an  old  New  Yorker,  in 
vented  an  idea.  He  originated  the  discovery 
that  bread  is  made  from  flour  and  not  from 
wheat  futures.  Perceiving  that  the  flour  crop 
was  short,  and  that  the  Stock  Exchange  was 
having  no  perceptible  effect  on  the  growing 
wheat,  Mr.  Kinsolving  cornered  the  flour 
market. 

The  result  was  that  when  you  or  my  landlady 
(before  the  war  she  never  had  to  turn  her  hand  to 
anything;  Southerners  accommodated)  bought 
a  five-cent  loaf  of  bread  you  laid  down  an  addi 
tional  two  cents,  which  went  to  Mr.  Kinsolving 
as  a  testimonial  to  his  perspicacity. 

A  second  result  was  that  Mr.  Kinsolving  quit 
the  game  with  $2,000,000  prof — er — rake-ofF. 

Air.  Kinsolving's  son  Dan  was  at  college  when 
the  mathematical  experiment  in  breadstuff's  was 
made.  Dan  came  home  during  vacation,  and 
found  the  old  gentleman  in  a  red  dressing- 
gown  reading  "Little  Dorrit"  on  the  porch  of 
his  estimable  red  brick  mansion  in  Washington 
Square.  He  had  retired  from  business  with 
enough  extra  two-cent  pieces  from  bread  buyers 
to  reach,  if  laid  side  by  side,  fifteen  times  around 
the  earth  and  lap  as  far  as  the  public  debt  of 
Paraguay. 

Dan  shook  hands  with  his  father,  and  hurried 
over  to  Greenwich  Village  to  see  his  old  high- 
school  friend,  Kenwitz.  Dan  had  always  ad 
mired  Kenwitz.  Kenwitz  was  pale,  curly- 


io4  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

haired,  intense,  serious,  mathematical,  studious, 
altruistic,  socialistic,  and  the  natural  foe  of 
oligarchies.  Kenwitz  had  foregone  college,  and 
was  learning  watch-making  in  his  father's 
jewelry  store.  Dan  was  smiling,  jovial,  easy- 
tempered  and  tolerant  alike  of  kings  and  rag 
pickers.  The  two  foregathered  joyously,  being 
opposites.  And  then  Dan  went  back  to  college, 
and  Kenwitz  to  his  mainsprings — and  to  his 
private  library  in  the  rear  of  the  jewelry  shop. 

Four  years  later  Dan  came  back  to  Washing 
ton  Square  with  the  accumulations  of  B.  A.  and 
two  years  of  Europe  thick  upon  him.  He  took 
a  filial  look  at  Septimus  Kinsolving's  elaborate 
tombstone  in  Greenwood,  and  a  tedious  ex 
cursion  through  typewritten  documents  with 
the  family  lawyer;  and  then,  feeling  himself 
a  lonely  and  hopeless  millionaire,  hurried  down 
to  the  old  jewelry  store  across  Sixth  Avenue. 

Kenwitz  unscrewed  a  magnifying  glass  from 
his  eye,  routed  out  his  parent  from  a  dingy  rear 
room,  and  abandoned  the  interior  of  watches 
for  outdoors.  He  went  with  Dan,  and  they  sat 
on  a  bench  in  Washington  Square.  Dan  had 
not  changed  much;  he  was  stalwart,  and  had  a 
dignity  that  was  inclined  to  relax  into  a  grin. 
Kenwitz  was  more  serious,  more  intense,  more 
learned,  philosophical,  and  socialistic. 

"I  know  about  it  now,"  said  Dan,  finally.  "I 
pumped  it  out  of  the  eminent  legal  lights  that 
turned  over  to  me  poor  old  dad's  collection  of 
bonds  and  boodle.  It  amounts  to  $2,000,000, 
Ken.  And  I  am  told  that  he  squeezed  it  out 
of  the  chaps  that  pay  their  pennies  for  loaves  of 


THE  UNKNOWN  QUANTITY  105 

bread  at  the  little  bakeries  around  the  corner. 
You've  studied  economics,  Ken,  and  you  know 
all  about  monopolies,  and  the  masses,  and 
octopuses,  and  the  rights  of  laboring  people.  I 
never  thought  about  those  things  before.  Foot 
ball  and  trying  to  be  white  to  my  fellow-man 
were  about  the  extent  of  my  college  curriculum. 

"But  since  I  came  back  and  found  out  how 
Dad  made  his  money  I've  been  thinking.  I'd 
like  awfully  well  to  pay  back  those  chaps  who 
had  to  give  up  too  much  money  for  bread.  I 
know  it  would  buck  the  line  of  my  income  for  a 
good  many  yards;  but  I'd  like  to  make  it  square 
with  'em.  Is  there  any  way  it  can  be  done,  old 
Ways  and  Means?" 

Kenwitz's  big  black  eyes  glowed  fierily.  His 
thin,  intellectual  face  took  on  almost  a  sardonic 
cast.  He  caught  Dan's  arm  with  the  grip  of  a 
friend  and  a  judge. 

"You  can't  do  it!"  he  said,  emphatically. 
"One  of  the  chief  punishments  of  you  men  of 
ill-gotten  wealth  is  that  when  you  do  repent 
you  find  that  you  have  lost  the  power  to  make 
reparation  or  restitution.  I  admire  your  good 
intentions,  Dan,  but  you  can't  do  anything. 
Those  people  were  robbed  of  their  precious 
pennies.  It's  too  late  to  remedy  the  evil.  You 
can't  pay  them  back." 

"Of  course,"  said  Dan,  lighting  his  pipe, 
"we  couldn't  hunt  up  every  one  of  the  duffers 
and  hand  'em  back  the  right  change.  There's 
an  awful  lot  of  'em  buying  bread  all  the  time. 
Funny  taste  they  have — I  never  cared  for  bread 
especially,  except  for  a  toasted  cracker  wTith 


io6  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

the  Roquefort.  But  we  might  find  a  few  of  'em 
and  chuck  some  of  Dad's  cash  back  where  it 
came  from.  I'd  feel  better  if  I  could.  It 
seems  tough  for  people  to  be  held  up  for  a  soggy 
thing  like  bread.  One  wouldn't  mind  standing 
a  rise  in  broiled  lobsters  or  deviled  crabs.  Get 
to  work  and  think,  Ken.  I  want  to  pay  back 
all  of  that  money  I  can." 

"There  are  plenty  of  charities,"  said  Ken- 
writz,  mechanically. 

"Easy  enough,"  said  Dan,  in  a  cloud  of 
smoke.  "I  suppose  I  could  give  the  city  a 
park,  or  endow  an  asparagus  bed  in  a  hospital. 
But  I  don't  want  Paul  to  get  away  with  the 
proceeds  of  the  gold  brick  we  sold  Peter.  It's 
the  bread  shorts  I  want  to  cover,  Ken." 

The  thin  fingers  of  Kenwitz  moved  rapidly. 

"Do  you  know  how  much  money  it  would 
take  to  pay  back  the  losses  of  consumers  during 
that  corner  in  flour?"  he  asked. 

"I  do  not,"  said  Dan,  stoutly.  "My  lawyer 
tells  me  that  I  have  two  millions." 

"If  you  had  a  hundred  millions,"  said  Ken 
witz,  vehemently,  "you  couldn't  repair  a 
thousandth  part  of  the  damage  that  has  been 
done.  You  cannot  conceive  of  the  accumu 
lated  evils  produced  by  misapplied  wealth. 
Each  penny  that  was  wrung  from  the  lean 
purses  of  the  poor  reacted  a  thousandfold  to 
their  harm.  You  do  not  understand.  You 
do  not  see  how  hopeless  is  your  desire  to  make 
restitution.  Not  in  a  single  instance  can  it  be 
done." 


THE  UNKNOWN  QUANTITY  107 

"Back  up,  philosopher!"  said  Dan.  "The 
penny  has  no  sorrow  that  the  dollar  cannot 
heal." 

"Not  in  one  instance,"  repeated  Kenwitz. 
"I  will  give  you  one,  and  let  us  see.  Thomas 
Boyne  had  a  little  bakery  over  there  in  Varick 
Street.  He  sold  bread  to  the  poorest  people. 
When  the  price  of  flour  went  up  he  had  to  raise 
the  price  of  bread.  His  customers  were  too 
poor  to  pay  it,  Boyne's  business  failed,  and  he 
lost  his  $1,000  capital — all  he  had  in  the  world." 

Dan  Kinsolving  struck  the  park  bench  a 
mighty  blow  \vith  his  fist. 

"I  accept  the  instance,"  he  cried.  "Take 
me  to  Boyne.  I  will  repay  his  thousand  dollars 
and  buy  him  a  new  bakery." 

"Write  your  check,"  said  Kenwitz,  without 
moving,  "and  then  begin  to  write  checks  in 
payment  of  the  train  of  consequences.  Draw 
the  next  one  for  $50,000.  Boyne  went  insane 
after  his  failure  and  set  fire  to  the  building  from 
which  he  was  about  to  be  evicted.  The  loss 
amounted  to  that  much.  Boyne  died  in  an 
asylum." 

"Stick  to  the  instance,"  said  Dan.  "I 
haven't  noticed  any  insurance  companies  on 
my  charity  list." 

"Draw  your  next  check  for  $100,000,"  went 
on  Kenwitz.  "Boyne's  son  fell  into  bad  ways 
after  the  bakery  closed,  and  was  accused  of 
murder.  He  was  acquitted  last  week  after  a 
three-years'  legal  battle,  and  the  state  draws 
upon  taxpayers  for  that  much  expense." 


io8  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

"Back  to  the  bakery!"  exclaimed  Dan,  im 
patiently.  "The  Government  doesn't  need  to 
stand  in  the  bread  line." 

"The  last  item  of  the  instance  is — come  and 
I  will  show  you,"  said  Kenwitz,  rising. 

The  socialistic  watchmaker  was  happy.  He 
was  a  millionaire-baiter  by  nature  and  a  pessi 
mist  by  trade.  Kenwitz  would  assure  you  in 
one  breath  that  money  was  but  evil  and  cor 
ruption,  and  that  your  brand-new  watch  needed 
cleaning  and  a  new  ratchet-wheel. 

He  conducted  Kinsolving  southward  out  of 
the  square  and  into  ragged,  poverty-haunted 
Varick  Street.  Up  the  narrow  stairway  of  a 
squalid  brick  tenement  he  led  the  penitent 
offspring  of  the  Octopus.  He  knocked  on  a 
door,  and  a  clear  voice  called  to  them  to  enter. 

In  that  almost  bare  room  a  young  woman  sat 
sewing  at  a  machine.  She  nodded  to  Kenwitz 
as  to  a  familiar  acquaintance.  One  little  stream 
of  sunlight  through  the  dingy  window  burnished 
her  heavy  hair  to  the  color  of  an  ancient  Tus 
can's  shield.  She  flashed  a  rippling  smile  at 
Kenwitz  and  a  look  of  somewhat  flustered 
inquiry. 

Kinsolving  stood  regarding  her  clear  and 
pathetic  beauty  in  heart-throbbing  silence. 
Thus  they  came  into  the  presence  of  the  last 
item  of  the  Instance. 

"How  many  this  week,  Miss  Mary?"  asked 
the  watchmaker.  A  mountain  of  coarse  gray 
shirts  lay  upon  the  floor. 

"Nearly  thirty  dozen,"  said  the  young  woman, 
cheerfully.  "I've  made  almost  £4.  I'm  im- 


THE  UNKNOWN  QUANTITY  109 

proving,  Mr.  Kenwitz.  I  hardly  know  what  to 
do  with  so  much  money."  Her  eyes  turned, 
brightly  soft,  in  the  direction  of  Dan.  A  little 
pink  spot  came  out  on  her  round,  pale  cheek. 

Kenwitz  chuckled  like  a  diabolic  raven. 

"Miss  Boyne,"  he  said,  "let  me  present  Mr. 
-Kinsolving,  the  son  of  the  man  who  put  bread 
up  five  years  ago.  He  thinks  he  would  like  to 
do  something  to  aid  those  who  were  incon 
venienced  by  that  act." 

The  smile  left  the  young  woman's  face.  She 
rose  and  pointed  her  forefinger  toward  the  door. 
This  time  she  looked  Kinsolving  straight  in  the 
eye,  but  it  was  not  a  look  that  gave  delight. 

The  twTo  men  went  down  into  Varick  Street. 
Kenwitz,  letting  all  his  pessimism  and  rancor 
and  hatred  of  the  Octopus  come  to  the  surface, 
gibed  at  the  moneyed  side  of  his  friend  in  an 
acrid  torrent  of  words.  Dan  appeared  to  be 
listening,  and  then  turned  to  Kenwitz  and 
shook  hands  with  him  warmly. 

"I'm  obliged  to  you,  Ken,  old  man"  he  said, 
vaguely— -"a  thousand  times  obliged." 

"Mein  Gott!  you  are  crazy!"  cried  the  watch 
maker,  dropping  his  spectacles  for  the  first  time 
in  years. 

Two  months  afterward  Kenwitz  went  into  a 
large  bakery  on  lower  Broadway  with  a  pair  of 
gold-rimmed  eye-glasses  that  he  had  mended 
for  the  proprietor. 

A  lady  was  giving  an  order  to  a  clerk  as 
Kenwitz  passed  her. 

"  These  loaves  are  ten  cents,"  said  the  clerk. 

"I  always  get  them  at  eight  cents  uptown," 


no  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

said  the  lady.  "You  need  not  fill  the  order. 
I  will  drive  by  there  on  my  way  home." 

The  voice  was  familiar.  The  watchmaker 
paused. 

"Mr.  Kenwitz!"  cried  the  lady,  heartily. 
"How  do  you  do?" 

Kenwitz  was  trying  to  train  his  socialistic 
and  economic  comprehension  on  her  wonderful 
fur  boa  and  the  carriage  waiting  outside. 

"Why,  Miss  Boyne!"  he  began. 

"Mrs.  Kinsolving,"  she  corrected.  "Dan 
and  I  were  married  a  month  ago." 


XI 

THE  THING'S  THE  PLAY 

BEING  acquainted  with  a  newspaper  reporter 
who  had  a  couple  of  free  passes,  I  got  to  see  the 
performance  a  few  nights  ago  at  one  of  the 
popular  vaudeville  houses. 

One  of  the  numbers  was  a  violin  solo  by  a 
striking-looking  man  not  much  past  forty, 
but  with  very  gray  thick  hair.  Not  being 
afflicted  with  a  taste  for  music,  I  let  the  system 
of  noises  drift  past  my  ears  while  I  regarded 
the  man. 

"There  was  a  story  about  that  chap  a  month 
or  two  ago,"  said  the  reporter.  "They  gave 
me  the  assignment.  It  was  to  run  a  column 
and  was  to  be  on  the  extremely  light  and  joking 
order.  The  old  man  seems  to  like  the  funny 
touch  I  give  to  local  happenings.  Oh,  yes,  I'm 
working  on  a  farce  comedy  now.  Well,  I  went 
down  to  the  house  and  got  all  the  details;  but 
I  certainly  fell  down  on  that  job.  I  went  back 
and  turned  in  a  comic  write-up  of  an  east  side 
funeral  instead.  Why?  Oh,  I  couldn't  seem 
to  get  hold  of  it  with  my  funny  hooks,  some 
how.  Maybe  you  could  make  a  one-act  tragedy 
out  of  it  for  a  curtain-raiser.  I'll  give  you  the 
details." 

After  the   performance   my   friend,   the  re- 
iii 


ii2  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

porter,  recited  to  me  the  facts  over  the  Wiirz- 
burger. 

"I  see  no  reason,"  said  I,  when  he  had  con 
cluded,  "why  that  shouldn't  make  a  rattling 
good  funny  story.  Those  three  people  couldn't 
have  acted  in  a  more  absurd  and  preposterous 
manner  if  they  had  been  real  actors  in  a  real 
theatre.  I'm  really  afraid  that  all  the  stage 
is  a  world,  anyhow,  and  all  the  players  merely 
men  and  woman.  'The  thing's  the  play,'  is 
the  way  I  quote  Mr.  Shakespeare." 

:'Try  it,"  said  the  reporter. 

"I  will,"  said  I;  and  I  did,  to  show  him  how 
he  could  have  made  a  humorous  column  of  it 
for  his  paper. 

There  stands  a  house  near  Abingdon  Square. 
On  the  ground  floor  there  has  been  for  twenty- 
five  years  a  little  store  where  toys  and  notions 
and  stationery  are  sold. 

One  night  twenty  years  ago  there  was  a  wed 
ding  in  the  rooms  above  the  store.  The  Widow 
Mayo  owned  the  house  and  store.  Her  daughter 
Helen  was  married  to  Frank  Barry.  John 
Delaney  was  best  man.  Helen  was  eighteen, 
and  her  picture  had  been  printed  in  a  morning 
paper  next  to  the  headlines  of  a  "Wholesale 
Female  Murderess"  story  from  Butte,  Mont. 
But  after  your  eye  and  intelligence  had  re 
jected  the  connection,  you  seized  your  magnify 
ing  glass  and  read  beneath  the  portrait  her 
description  as  one  of  a  series  of  Prominent 
Beauties  and  Belles  ®f  the  lowrer  west  side. 

Frank  Barry  and  John  Delaney  were  "promi 
nent"  young  beaux  of  the  same  side,  and 


THE  THING'S  THE  PLAY  113 

bosom  friends,  whom  you  expected  to  turn 
upon  each  other  every  time  the  curtain  went  up. 
One  who  pays  his  money  for  orchestra  seats  and 
fiction  expects  this.  That  is  the  first  funny  idea 
that  has  turned  up  in  the  story  yet.  Both  had 
made  a  great  race  for  Helen's  hand.  When 
Frank  won,  John  shook  his  hand  and  congratu 
lated  him — honestly,  he  did. 

After  the  ceremony  Helen  ran  upstairs  to  put 
on  her  hat.  She  was  getting  married  in  a 
traveling  dress.  She  and  Frank  were  going  to 
Old  Point  Comfort  for  a  week.  Downstairs  the 
usual  horde  of  gibbering  cave-dwellers  were 
waiting  with  their  hands  full  of  old  Congress 
gaiters  and  paper  bags  of  hominy. 

Then  there  was  a  rattle  of  the  fire-escape,  and 
into  her  room  jumps  the  mad  and  infatuated 
John  Delaney,  with  a  damp  curl  drooping  upon 
his  forehead,  and  made  violent  and  reprehensive 
love  to  his  lost  one,  entreating  her  to  flee  or  fly 
with  him  to  the  Riviera,  or  the  Bronx,  or  any 
old  place  where  there  are  Italian  skies  and  doles 
jar  nienie. 

It  would  have  carried  Blaney  off  his  feet  to  see 
Helen  repulse  him.  With  blazing  and  scornful 
eyes  she  fairly  withered  him  by  demanding 
whatever  he  meant  by  speaking  to  respectable 
people  that  way. 

In  a  few  moments  she  had  him  going.  The 
manliness  that  had  possessed  him  departed. 
He  bowed  low,  and  said  something  about 
"irresistible  impulse"  and  "forever  carry  in  his 
heart  the  memory  of" — and  she  suggested  that 
he  catch  the  first  fire-escape  going  down. 


ii4  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

"I  will  away,"  said  John  Delaney,  "to  the 
furthermost  parts  of  the  earth.  I  cannot  re 
main  near  you  and  know  that  you  are  another's. 
I  will  to  Africa,  and  there  amid  other  scenes 
strive  to  for 

"For  goodness  sake,  get  out,"  said  Helen. 
"Somebody  might  come  in." 

He  knelt  upon  one  knee,  and  she  extended 
him  one  white  hand  that  he  might  give  it  a 
farewell  kiss. 

Girls,  was  this  choice  boon  of  the  great  little 
god  Cupid  ever  vouchsafed  you — to  have  the 
fellow  you  want  hard  and  fast,  and  have  the  one 
you  don't  want  come  with  a  damp  curl  on  his 
forehead  and  kneel  to  you  and  babble  of  Africa 
and  love  which,  in  spite  of  everything,  shall  for 
ever  bloom,  an  amaranth,  in  his  heart?  To 
know  your  power,  and  to  feel  the  sweet  security 
of  your  own  happy  state;  to  send  the  unlucky 
one,  broken-hearted,  to  foreign  climes,  while 
you  congratulate  yourself  as  he  presses  his  last 
kiss  upon  your  knuckles,  that  your  nails  are 
well  manicured — say,  girls,  it's  galluptious — 
don't  ever  let  it  get  by  you. 

And  then,  of  course — how  did  you  guess  r — the 
door  opened  and  in  stalked  the  bridegroom, 
jealous  of  slow-tying  bonnet  strings. 

The  farewell  kiss  was  imprinted  upon  Helen's 
hand,  and  out  of  the  window  and  down  the  fire- 
escape  sprang  John  Delaney,  Africa  bound. 

A  little  slow  music,  if  you  please — faint 
violin,  just  a  breath  in  the  clarinet  and  a  touch 
of  the  'cello.  Imagine  the  scene.  Frank, 
white-hot,  with  the  cry  of  a  man  wounded  to 


THE  THING'S  THE  PLAY  115 

death  bursting  from  him.  Helen,  rushing  and 
clinging  to  him,  trying  to  explain.  He  catches 
her  wrists  and  tears  them  from  his  shoulders — 
once,  twice,  thrice  he  sways  her  this  way  and 
that — the  stage  manager  will  show  you  how — 
and  throws  her  from  him  to  the  floor  a  huddled, 
crushed,  moaning  thing.  Never,  he  cries,  will 
he  look  upon  her  face  again,  and  rushes  from 
the  house  through  the  staring  groups  of  as 
tonished  guests. 

And,  now,  because  it  is  the  Thing  instead  of 
the  Play,  the  audience  must  stroll  out  into  the 
real  lobby  of  the  world  and  marry,  die,  grow 
gray,  rich,  poor,  happy,  or  sad  during  the  inter 
mission  of  twenty  years  which  must  precede  the 
rising  of  the  curtain  again. 

Mrs.  Barry  inherited  the  shop  and  the  house. 
At  thirty-eight  she  could  have  bested  many  an 
eighteen-year-old  at  a  beauty  show  on  points 
and  general  results.  Only  a  few  people  re 
membered  her  wedding  comedy,  but  she  made 
of  it  no  secret.  She  did  not  pack  it  in  lavender 
or  moth  balls,  nor  did  she  sell  it  to  a  magazine. 

One  day  a  middle-aged,  money-making  lawyer 
who  bought  his  legal  cap  and  ink  of  her,  asked 
her  across  the  counter  to  marry  him. 

"I'm  really  much  obliged  to  you,"  said  Helen, 
cheerfully,  "  but  I  married  another  man  twenty 
years  ago.  He  was  more  a  goose  than  a  man, 
but  I  think  I  love  him  yet.  I  have  never  seen  him 
since  about  half  an  hour  after  the  ceremony. 
Was  it  copying  ink  that  you  wanted  or  just 
writing  fluid?" 
:  The  lawyer  bowed  over  the  counter  with  old- 


n6  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

time  grace  and  left  a  respectful  kiss  on  the  back 
of  her  hand.  Helen  sighed.  Parting  salutes, 
however  romantic,  may  be  overdone.  Here  she 
was  at  thirty-eight,  beautiful  and  admired; 
and  all  that  she  seemed  to  have  got  from  her 
lovers  were  reproaches  and  adieus.  Worse  still, 
in  the  last  one  she  had  lost  a  customer,  too. 

Business  languished,  and  she  hung  out  a 
Room  to  Let  card.  Two  large  rooms  on  the 
third  floor  were  prepared  for  desirable  tenants. 
Roomers  came,  and  went  regretfully,  for  the 
house  of  Mrs.  Barry  was  the  abode  of  neatness, 
comfort,  and  taste. 

One  day  came  Ramonti,  the  violinist,  and 
engaged  the  front  room  above.  The  discord 
and  clatter  uptown  offended  his  nice  ear;  so  a 
friend  had  sent  him  to  this  oasis  in  the  desert  of 
noise. 

Ramonti,  with  his  still  youthful  face,  his 
dark  eyebrows,  his  short,  pointed,  foreign, 
brown  beard,  his  distinguished  head  of  gray 
hair,  and  his  artist's  temperament — revealed 
in  his  light,  gay,  and  sympathetic  manner — was 
a  welcome  tenant  in  the  old  house  near  Abing- 
don  Square. 

Helen  lived  on  the  floor  above  the  store. 
The  architecture  of  it  was  singular  and  quaint. 
The  hall  was  large  and  almost  square.  Up  one 
side  of  it  and  then  across  the  end  of  it  ascended 
an  open  stairway  to  the  floor  above.  This 
hall  space  she  had  furnished  as  a  sitting  room 
and  office  combined.  There  she  kept  her  desk 
and  wrote  her  business  letters;  and  there  she  sat 
of  evenings  by  a  warm  fire  and  a  bright  red  light 


THE  THING'S  THE  PLAY  117 

and  sewed  or  read.  Ramonti  found  the  atmos 
phere  so  agreeable  that  he  spent  much  time 
there,  describing  to  Mrs.  Barry  the  wonders 
of  Paris,  where  he  had  studied  with  a  particu 
larly  notorious  and  noisy  fiddler. 

Next  comes  lodger  No.  2,  a  handsome,  melan 
choly  man  in  the  early  40*8,  with  a  brown, 
mysterious  beard,  and  strangely  pleading,  haunt 
ing  eyes.  He,  too,  found  the  society  of  Helen 
a  desirable  thing.  With  the  eyes  of  Romeo 
and  Othello's  tongue,  he  charmed  her  with  tales 
of  distant  climes  and  wooed  her  by  respectful 
innuendo. 

From  the  first  Helen  felt  a  marvelous  and 
compelling  thrill  in  the  presence  of  this  man. 
His  voice  somehow  took  her  swiftly  back  to  the 
days  of  her  youth's  romance.  This  feeling 
grew,  and  she  gave  way  to  it,  and  it  led  her  to  an 
instinctive  belief  that  he  had  been  a  factor 
in  that  romance.  And  then  with  a  woman's 
reasoning  (oh,  yes,  they  do,  sometimes)  she 
leaped  over  common  syllogisms  and  theory,  and 
logic,  and  was  sure  that  her  husband  had  come 
back  to  her.  For  she  saw  in  his  eyes  love,  which 
no  woman  can  mistake,  and  a  thousand  tons  of 
regret  and  remorse,  which  aroused  pity  which 
is  perilously  near  to  love  requited,  which  is  the 
sine  qua  non  in  the  house  that  Jack  built. 

But  she  made  no  sign.  A  husband  who 
steps  around  the  corner  for  twenty  years  and 
then  drops  in  again  should  not  expect  to  find 
his  slippers  laid  out  too  conveniently  near  nor  a 
match  ready  lighted  for  his  cigar.  There  must 
be  expiation,  explanation,  and  possibly  exe- 


ii8  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

cration.  A  little  purgatory,  and  then,  maybe, 
if  he  were  properly  humble,  he  might  be  trusted 
with  a  harp  and  crown.  And  so  she  made  no 
sign  that  she  knew  or  suspected. 

And  my  friend,  the  reporter,  could  see  noth 
ing  funny  in  this!  Sent  out  on  an  assignment 
to  write  up  a  roaring,  hilarious,  brilliant  joshing 
story  of — but  I  will  not  knock  a  brother — let  us 
go  on  wTith  the  story. 

One  evening  Ramonti  stopped  in  Helen's 
hall-office-reception-room  and  told  his  love 
with  the  tenderness  and  ardor  of  the  enraptured 
artist.  His  words  were  a  bright  flame  of  the 
divine  fire  that  glows  in  the  heart  of  a  man 
who  is  a  dreamer  and  a  doer  combined. 

"  But  before  you  give  me  an  answrer,"  he  went 
on,  before  she  could  accuse  him  of  suddenness, 
"I  must  tell  you  that  'Ramonti'  is  the  only 
name  I  have  to  offer  you.  My  manager  gave 
me  that.  I  do  not  know  who  I  am  or  where  I 
came  from.  My  first  recollection  is  of  opening 
my  eyes  in  a  hospital.  I  was  a  young  man,  and 
I  had  been  there  for  weeks.  My  life  before  that 
is  a  blank  to  me.  They  told  me  that  I  was 
found  lying  in  the  street  with  a  wound  on  my 
head  and  was  brought  there  in  an  ambulance. 
They  thought  I  must  have  fallen  and  struck  my 
head  upon  the  stones.  There  was  nothing  to 
show  who  I  was.  I  have  never  been  able  to  re 
member.  After  I  was  discharged  from  the 
hospital,  I  took  up  the  violin.  I  have  had  suc 
cess.  Mrs.  Barry — I  do  not  know  your  name 
except  that — I  love  you;  the  first  time  I  saw 
you  I  realized  that  you  were  the  one  woman  in 


THE  THING'S  THE  PLAY  119 

the  world  for  me — and" — oh,  a  lot  of  stuff  like 
that. 

Helen  felt  young  again.  First  a  wave  of 
pride  and  a  sweet  little  thrill  of  vanity  went  all 
over  her;  and  then  she  looked  Ramonti  in  the 
eyes,  and  a  tremendous  throb  went  through  her 
heart.  She  hadn't  expected  that  throb.  It 
took  her  by  surprise.  The  musician  had  be 
come  a  big  factor  in  her  life,  and  she  hadn't  been 
aware  of  it. 

"Mr.  Ramonti,"  she  said  sorrowfully  (this 
was  not  on  the  stage,  remember;  it  was  in  the 
old  home  near  Abingdon  Square),  "I'm  awfully 
sorry,  but  I'm  a  married  woman." 

And  then  she  told  him  the  sad  story  of  her 
life,  as  a  heroine  must  do,  sooner  or  later,  either 
to  a  theatrical  manager  or  to  a  reporter. 

Ramonti  took  her  hand,  bowed  low  and 
kissed  it,  and  went  up  to  his  room. 

Helen  sat  down  and  looked  mournfully  at 
her  hand.  Well  she  might.  Three  suitors  had 
kissed  it,  mounted  their  red  roan  steeds  and 
ridden  away.  I 

In  an  hour  entered  the  mysterious  stranger 
with  the  haunting  eyes.  Helen  was  in  the 
willow  rocker,  knitting  a  useless  thing  in  cotton 
wool.  He  ricocheted  from  the  stairs  and 
stopped  for  a  chat.  Sitting  across  the  table 
from  her,  he  also  poured  out  his  narrative  of 
love.  And  then  he  said:  "Helen,  do  you  not 
remember  me?  I  think  I  have  seen  it  in  your 
eyes.  Can  you  forgive  the  past  and  remember 
the  love  that  has  lasted  for  twenty  years?  I 
wronged  you  deeply — I  was  afraid  to  come  back 


120  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

to  you — but  my  love  overpowered  my  reason. 
Can  you,  will  you,  forgive  me?" 

Helen  stood  up.  The  mysterious  stranger 
held  one  of  her  hands  in  a  strong  and  trembling 
clasp. 

There  she  stood,  and  I  pity  the  stage  that  it 
has  not  acquired  a  scene  like  that  and  her 
emotions  to  portray. 

For  she  stood  with  a  divided  heart.  The 
fresh,  unforgettable,  virginal  love  for  her  bride 
groom  was  hers;  the  treasured,  sacred,  honored 
memory  of  her  first  choice  filled  half  her  soul. 
She  leaned  to  that  pure  feeling.  Honor  and 
faith  and  sweet,  abiding  romance  bound  her  to 
it.  But  the  other  half  of  her  heart  and  soul 
was  filled  with  something  else — a  later,  fuller, 
nearer  influence.  And  so  the  old  fought  against 
the  new. 

And  while  she  hesitated,  from  the  room  above 
came  the  soft,  racking,  petitionary  music  of  a 
violin.  The  hag,  music,  bewitches  some  of  the 
noblest.  The  daws  may  peck  upon  one's  sleeve 
without  injury,  but  whoever  wears  his  heart 
upon  his  tympanum  gets  it  not  far  from  the 
neck. 

The  music  and  the  musician  called  her,  and  at 
her  side  honor  and  the  old  love  held  her  back. 

"Forgive  me,"  he  pleaded. 

"Twenty  years  is  a  long  time  to  remain  away 
from  the  one  you  say  you  love,"  she  declared, 
with  a  purgatorial  touch. 

"How  could  I  tell?"  he  begged.  "I  will 
conceal  nothing  from  you.  That  night  when  he 
left  I  followed  him.  I  was  mad  with  jealousy. 


THE  THING'S  THE  PLAY  121 

On  a  dark  street  I  struck  him  down.  He  did 
not  rise.  I  examined  him.  His  head  had 
struck  a  stone.  I  did  not  intend  to  kill  him. 
I  was  mad  with  love  and  jealousy.  I  hid  near 
by  and  saw  an  ambulance  take  him  away. 
Although  you  married  him,  Helen — 

"  Who  Are  You?  "  cried  the  woman,  with  wide- 
open  eyes,  snatching  her  hand  away. 

"Don't  you  remember  me,  Helen — the  one 
who  has  always  loved  you  the  best?  I  am  John 
Delaney.  If  you  can  forgive 

But  she  was  gone,  leaping,  stumbling,  hurry 
ing,  flying  up  the  stairs  toward  the  music  and 
him  who  had  forgotten,  but  who  had  known  her 
for  his  in  each  of  his  two  existences,  and  as  she 
climbed  up  she  sobbed,  cried,  and  sang:  "Frank! 
Frank!  Frank!" 

Three  mortals  thus  juggling  with  years  as 
though  they  were  billiard  balls,  and  my  friend, 
the  reporter,  couldn't  see  anything  funny  in  it! 


XII 
A  RAMBLE  IN  APHASIA 

MY  WIFE  and  I  parted  on  that  morning  in 
precisely  our  usual  manner.  She  left  her  second 
cup  of  tea  to  follow  me  to  the  front  door.  There 
she  plucked  from  my  lapel  the  invisible  strand 
of  lint  (the  universal  act  of  woman  to  proclaim 
ownership)  and  bade  me  take  care  of  my  cold. 
I  had  no  cold.  Next  came  her  kiss  of  parting 
— the  level  kiss  of  domesticity  flavored  with 
Young  Hyson.  There  was  no  fear  of  the  ex 
temporaneous,  of  variety  spicing  her  infinite 
custom.  With  the  deft  touch  of  long  mal 
practice,  she  dabbed  awry  my  well-set  scarf 
pin;  and  then,  as  I  closed  the  door,  I  heard  her 
morning  slippers  pattering  back  to  her  cooling 
tea. 

When  I  set  out  I  had  no  thought  or  premo 
nition  of  what  was  to  occur.  The  attack  came 
suddenly. 

For  many  weeks  I  had  been  toiling,  almost 
night  and  day,  at  a  famous  railroad  law  case 
that  I  won  triumphantly  but  a  few  days 
previously.  In  fact,  I  had  been  digging  away 
at  the  law  almost  without  cessation  for  many 
years.  Once  or  twice  good  Doctor  Volney,  my 
friend  and  physician,  had  warned  me. 


A  RAMBLE  IN  APHASIA  123 

"If  you  don't  slacken  up,  Bellford,"  he  said, 
"you'll  go  suddenly  to  pieces.  Either  your 
nerves  or  your  brain  will  give  way.  Tell  me, 
does  a  week  pass  in  which  you  do  not  read  in  the 
papers  of  a  case  of  aphasia — of  some  man  lost, 
wandering  nameless,  with  his  past  and  his 
identity  blotted  out — and  all  from  that  little 
brain  clot  made  by  overwork  or  worry?" 

"I  always  thought,"  said  I,  "that  the  clot  in 
those  instances  was  really  to  be  found  on  the 
brains  of  the  newspaper  reporters." 

Doctor  Volney  shook  his  head. 

"The  disease  exists,"  he  said.  "You  need  a 
change  or  a  rest.  Court-room,  office,  and  home 
— there  is  the  only  route  you  travel.  For 
recreation  you — read  law  books.  Better  take 
warning  in  time." 

"On  Thursday  nights,"  I  said,  defensively, 
"my  wife  and  I  play  cribbage.  On  Sundays 
she  reads  to  me  the  weekly  letter  from  her 
mother.  That  law  books  are  not  a  recreation 
remains  yet  to  be  established." 

That  morning  as  I  walked  I  was  thinking  of 
Doctor  Volney's  words.  I  was  feeling  as  well 
as  I  usually  did — possibly  in  better  spirits  than 
usual. 

I  woke  with  stiff  and  cramped  muscles  from 
having  slept  long  on  the  incommodious  seat  of  a 
day  coach.  I  leaned  my  head  against  the  seat 
and  tried  to  think.  After  a  long  time  I  said 
to  myself:  "I  must  have  a  name  of  some  sort." 
I  searched  my  pockets.  Not  a  card;  not  a 
letter;  not  a  paper  or  monogram  could  I  find. 


124  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

But  I  found  in  my  coat  pocket  nearly  $3,000 
in  bills  of  large  denomination.  "I  must  be 
some  one,  of  course,"  I  repeated  to  myself,  and 
began  again  to  consider. 

The  car  was  well  crowded  with  men,  among 
whom,  I  told  myself,  there  must  have  been  some 
common  interest,  for  they  intermingled  freely, 
and  seemed  in  the  best  good  humor  and  spirits. 
One  of  them — a  stout,  spectacled  gentleman 
enveloped  in  a  decided  odor  of  cinnamon  and 
aloes — took  the  vacant  half  of  my  seat  with  a 
friendly  nod,  and  unfolded  a  newspaper.  In 
the  intervals  between  his  periods  of  reading,  we 
conversed,  as  travelers  will,  on  current  affairs. 
I  found  myself  able  to  sustain  the  conversation 
on  such  subjects  with  credit,  at  least  to  my 
memory.  By  and  by  my  companion  said: 

"You  are  one  of  us,  of  course.  Fine  lot  of 
men  the  West  sends  in  this  time.  I'm  glad  they 
held  the  convention  in  New  York;  I've  never 
been  East  before.  My  name's  R.  P.  Bolder — 
Bolder  &  Son,  of  Hickory  Grove,  Missouri." 

Though  unprepared,  I  rose  to  the  emergency, 
as  men  will  when  put  to  it.  Now  must  I  hold  a 
christening,  and  be  at  once  babe,  parson,  and 
parent.  My  senses  came  to  the  rescue  of  my 
slower  brain.  The  insistent  odor  of  drugs  from 
my  companion  supplied  one  idea;  a  glance  at  his 
newspaper,  where  my  eye  met  a  conspicuous 
advertisement,  assisted  me  further. 

"My  name,"  said  I,  glibly,  "is  Edward 
Pinkhammer.  I  am  a  druggist,  and  my  home  is 
in  Cornopolis,  Kansas." 

"I  knew  you  were  a  druggist,"  said  my  fellow 


A  RAMBLE  IN  APHASIA  125 

traveler,  affably.  "I  saw  the  callous  spot  on 
your  right  forefinger  where  the  handle  of  the 
pestle  rubs.  Of  course,  you  are  a  delegate  to 
our  National  Convention." 

"Are  all  these  men  druggists?"  I  asked, 
wonderingly. 

"They  are.  This  car  came  through  from  the 
West.  And  they're  your  old-time  druggists, 
too — none  of  your  patent  tablet-and-granule 
pharmashootists  that  use  slot  machines  instead 
of  a  prescription  desk.  We  percolate  our  own 
paregoric  and  roll  our  own  pills,  and  we  ain't 
above  handling  a  few  garden  seeds  in  the  spring, 
and  carrying  a  side  line  of  confectionery  and 
shoes.  I  tell  you,  Hampinker,  I've  got  an  idea 
to  spring  on  this  convention — new  ideas  is 
what  they  want.  Now,  you  know  the  shelf 
bottles  of  tartar  emetic  and  Rochelle  salt  Ant. 
et  Pot.  Tart,  and  Sod.  et  Pot.  Tart. — one's 
poison,  you  know,  and  the  other's  harmless. 
It's  easy  to  mistake  one  label  for  the  other. 
Where  do  druggists  mostly  keep  'em?  Why, 
as  far  apart  as  possible,  on  different  shelves. 
That's  wrong.  I  say  keep  'em  side  by  side,  so 
when  you  want  one  you  can  always  compare  it 
with  the  other  and  avoid  mistakes.  Do  you 
catch  the  idea?" 

"It  seems  to  me  a  very  good  one,"  I  said. 

"All  right!  When  I  spring  it  on  the  con 
vention  you  back  it  up.  We'll  make  some  of 
these  Eastern  orange-phosphate-and-massage- 
cream  professors  that  think  they're  the  only 
lozenges  in  the  market  look  like  hypodermic 
tablets." 


126  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

"If  I  can  be  of  any  aid,"  I  said,  warming, 
"the  two  bottles  of — er 

"Tartrate  of  antimony  and  potash,  and  tar- 
trate  of  soda  and  potash." 

"Shall  henceforth  sit  side  by  side,"  I  con 
cluded,  firmly. 

"Now,  there's  another  thing,"  said  Mr. 
Bolder.  "For  an  excipient  in  manipulating  a 
pill  mass  which  do  you  prefer — the  magnesia 
carbonate  or  the  pulverized  glycerrhiza  radix?" 

"The — er — magnesia,"  I  said.  It  was  easier 
to  say  than  the  other  word. 

Mr.  Bolder  glanced  at  me  distrustfully 
through  his  spectacles. 

"Give  me  the  glycerrhiza,"  said  he.  "Mag 
nesia  cakes." 

"Here's  another  one  of  these  fake  aphasia 
cases,"  he  said,  presently,  handing  me  his 
newspaper,  and  laying  his  finger  upon  an  article. 
"I  don't  believe  in  'em.  I  put  nine  out  of  ten 
of  'em  down  as  frauds.  A  man  gets  sick  of  his 
business  and  his  folks  and  wants  to  have  a  good 
time.  He  skips  out  somewhere,  and  when  they 
find  him  he  pretends  to  have  lost  his  memory — 
don't  know  his  own  name,  and  won't  even 
recognize  the  strawberry  mark  on  his  wife's  left 
shoulder.  Aphasia!  Tut!  Why  can't  they 
stay  at  home  and  forget?" 

I  took  the  paper  and  read,  after  the  pungent 
headlines,  the  following: 

DENVER,  June  12. — Elwyn  C.  Bellford,  a  prominent 
lawyer,  is  mysteriously  missing  from  his  home  since  three 
days  ago,  and  all  efforts  to  locate  him  have  been  in  vain. 
Mr.  Bellford  is  a  well-known  citizen  of  the  highest  stand- 


A  RAMBLE  IN  APHASIA  127 

ing,  and  has  enjoyed  a  large  and  lucrative  law  practice. 
He  is  married  and  owns  a  fine  home  and  the  most  extensive 
private  library  in  the  State.  On  the  day  of  his  disappear 
ance,  he  drew  quite  a  large  sum  of  money  from  his  bank. 
No  one  can  be  found  who  saw  him  after  he  left  the  bank. 
Mr.  Bellford  was  a  man  of  singularly  quiet  and  domestic 
tastes,  and  seemed  to  find  his  happiness  in  his  home  and 
profession.  If  any  clue  at  all  exists  to  his  strange  dis 
appearance,  it  may  be  found  in  the  fact  that  for  some 
months  he  has  been  deeply  absorbed  in  an  important  law 
case  in  connection  with  the  Q.  Y.  and  Z.  Railroad  Com 
pany.  It  is  feared  that  overwork  may  have  affected  his 
mind.  Every  effort  is  being  made  to  discover  the  where 
abouts  of  the  missing  man. 


"It  seems  to  me  you  are  not  altogether  un- 
cynical,  Mr.  Bolder,"  I  said,  after  I  had  read 
the  despatch.  "This  has  the  sound,  to  me,  of  a 
genuine  case.  Why  should  this  man,  prosper 
ous,  happily  married,  and  respected,  choose 
suddenly  to  abandon  everything?  I  know 
that  these  lapses  of  memory  do  occur,  and  that 
men  do  find  themselves  adrift  without  a  name,  a 
history,  or  a  home." 

"Oh,  gammon  and  jalap!"  said  Mr.  Bolder. 
"It's  larks  they're  after.  There's  too  much 
education  nowadays.  Men  know  about  aphasia, 
and  they  use  it  for  an  excuse.  The  women  are 
wise,  too.  When  it's  all  over  they  look  you  in 
the  eye,  as  scientific  as  you  please,  and  say:  'He 
hypnotized  me." 

Thus  Mr.  Bolder  diverted,  but  did  not  aid  me 
with  his  comments  and  philosophy. 

We  arrived  in  New  York  about  ten  at  night. 
I  rode  in  a  cab  to  a  hotel,  and  I  wrote  my  name 
"Edward  Pinkhammer"  in  the  register.  As 


128  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

I  did  so  I  felt  pervade  me  a  splendid,  wild,  in 
toxicating  buoyancy — a  sense  of  unlimited 
freedom,  of  newly  attained  possibilities.  I  was 
just  born  into  the  world.  The  old  fetters — 
whatever  they  had  been — were  stricken  from 
my  hands  and  feet.  The  future  lay  before  me  a 
clear  road  such  as  an  infant  enters,  and  I  could 
set  out  upon  it  equipped  with  a  man's  learning 
and  experience. 

I  thought  the  hotel  clerk  looked  at  me  five 
seconds  too  long.  I  had  no  baggage. 

"The  Druggists'  Convention,"  I  said.  "My 
trunk  has  somehow  failed  to  arrive."  I  drew 
out  a  roll  of  money. 

"Ah!"  said  he,  showing  an  auriferous  tooth, 
"we  have  quite  a  number  of  the  Western  dele 
gates  stopping  here."  He  struck  a  bell  for  the 
boy. 

I  endeavored  to  give  color  to  my  role. 

"There  is  an  important  movement  on  foot 
among  us  Westerners,"  I  said,  "in  regard  to  a 
recommendation  to  the  convention  that  the 
bottles  containing  the  tartrate  of  antimony  and 
potash,  and  the  tartrate  of  sodium  and  potash  be 
kept  in  a  contiguous  position  on  the  shelf." 

"Gentleman  to  three-fourteen,"  said  the 
clerk,  hastily.  I  was  whisked  away  to  my 
room. 

The  next  day  I  bought  a  trunk  and  clothing, 
and  began  to  live  the  life  of  Edward  Pink- 
hammer.  I  did  not  tax  my  brain  with  en 
deavors  to  solve  problems  of  the  past. 

It  was  a  piquant  and  sparkling  cup  that  the 
great  island  city  held  up  to  my  lips.  I  drank  of 


A  RAMBLE  IN  APHASIA  129 

it  gratefully.  The  keys  of  Manhattan  belong 
to  him  who  is  able  to  bear  them.  You  must  be 
either  the  city's  guest  or  its  victim. 

The  following  few  days  were  as  gold  and 
silver.  Edward  Pinkhammmer,  yet  counting 
back  to  his  birth  by  hours  only,  knew  the  rare 
joy  of  having  come  upon  so  diverting  a  world 
full-fledged  and  unrestrained.  I  sat  entranced 
on  the  magic  carpets  provided  in  theatres  and 
roof-gardens,  that  transported  one  into  strange 
and  delightful  lands  full  of  frolicsome  music, 
pretty  girls,  and  grotesque,  drolly  extravagant 
parodies  upon  human  kind.  I  went  here  and 
there  at  my  own  dear  will,  bound  by  no  limits 
of  space,  time,  or  comportment.  I  dined  in 
weird  cabarets,  at  weirder  tables  d'hote  to  the 
sound  of  Hungarian  music  and  the  wild  shouts 
of  mercurial  artists  and  sculptors.  Or,  again, 
where  the  night  life  quivers  in  the  electric  glare 
like  a  kinetoscopic  picture,  and  the  millinery 
of  the  world,  and  its  jewels,  and  the  ones  whom 
they  adorn,  and  the  men  who  make  all  three 
possible  are  met  for  good  cheer  and  the  spec 
tacular  effect.  And  among  all  these  scenes  that 
I  have  mentioned  I  learned  one  thing  that  I 
never  knew  before.  And  that  is  that  the  key  to 
liberty  is  not  in  the  hands  of  License,  but  Con 
vention  holds  it.  Comity  has  a  toll-gate  at 
which  you  must  pay,  or  you  may  not  enter  the 
land  of  Freedom.  In  all  the  glitter,  the  seem 
ing  disorder,  the  parade,  the  abandon,  I  saw 
this  law,  unobtrusive,  yet  like  iron,  prevail. 
Therefore,  in  Manhattan  you  must  obey  these 
unwritten  laws,  and  then  you  will  be  freest  of 


i3o  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

the  free.  If  you  decline  to  be  bound  by  them, 
you  put  on  shackles. 

Sometimes,  as  my  mood  urged  me,  I  would 
seek  the  stately,  softly  murmuring  palm  rooms, 
redolent  with  high-born  life  and  delicate  re 
straint,  in  which  to  dine.  Again  I  would  go 
down  to  the  waterways  in  steamers  packed  with 
vociferous,  bedecked,  unchecked  love-making 
clerks  and  shop-girls  to  their  crude  pleasures 
on  the  island  shores.  And  there  was  always 
Broadway — glistening,  opulent,  wily,  varying, 
desirable  Broadway — growing  upon  one  like  an 
opium  habit. 

One  afternoon  as  I  entered  my  hotel  a  stout 
man  with  a  big  nose  and  a  black  mustache 
blocked  my  way  in  the  corridor.  When  I  would 
have  passed  around  him,  he  greeted  me  with 
offensive  familiarity. 

"Hallo,  Bellford!"  he  cried,  loudly.  "What 
the  deuce  are  you  doing  in  New  York?  Didn't 
know  anything  could  drag  you  away  from  that 
old  book  den  of  yours.  Is  Mrs.  B.  along  or  is 
this  a  little  business  run  alone,  eh?" 

"You  have  made  a  mistake,  sir,"  I  said, 
coldly,  releasing  my  hand  from  his  grasp.  "My 
name  is  Pinkhammer.  You  will  excuse  me." 

The  man  dropped  to  one  side,  apparently 
astonished.  As  I  walked  to  the  clerk's  desk  I 
heard  him  call  to  a  bell  boy  and  say  something 
about  telegraph  blanks. 

"You  will  give  me  my  bill,"  I  said  to  the 
clerk,  "and  have  my  baggage  brought  down  in 
half  an  hour.  I  do  not  care  to  remain  where  I 
am  annoyed  by  confidence  men." 


A  RAMBLE  IN  APHASIA  131 

I  moved  that  afternoon  to  another  hotel,  a 
sedate,  old-fashioned  one  on  lower  Fifth  Avenue. 

There  was  a  restaurant  a  little  way  off  Broad 
way  where  one  could  be  served  almost  al  fresco 
in  a  tropic  array  of  screening  flora.  Quiet  and 
luxury  and  a  perfect  service  made  it  an  ideal 
place  in  which  to  take  luncheon  or  refreshment. 
One  afternoon  I  was  there  picking  my  way  to  a 
table  among  the  ferns  when  I  felt  my  sleeve 
caught. 

"Mr.  Bellford!"  exclaimed  an  amazingly 
sweet  voice. 

I  turned  quickly  to  see  a  lady  seated  alone — 
a  lady  of  about  thirty,  with  exceedingly  hand 
some  eyes,  who  looked  at  me  as  though  I  had 
been  her  very  dear  friend. 

"You  were  about  to  pass  me,"  she  said, 
accusingly.  "Don't  tell  me  you  did  not  know 
me.  Why  should  we  not  shake  hands — at  least 
once  in  fifteen  years?" 

I  shook  hands  with  her  at  once.  I  took  a 
chair  opposite  her  at  the  table.  I  summoned 
with  my  eyebrows  a  hovering  waiter.  The 
lady  was  philandering  with  an  orange  ice.  I 
ordered  a  creme  de  menthe.  Her  hair  was 
reddish  bronze.  You  could  not  look  at  it, 
because  you  could  not  look  away  from  her  eyes. 
But  you  were  conscious  of  it  as  you  are  conscious 
of  sunset  while  you  look  into  the  profundities  of 
a  wood  at  twilight. 

"Are  you  sure  you  know  me?"  I  asked. 

"No,"  she  said,  smiling,  "I  was  never  sure  of 
that." 

"What  would  you  think,"  I   said,   a  little 


132  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

anxiously,  "if  I  were  to  tell  you  that  my  name  is 
Edward  Pinkhammer,  from  Cornopolis,  Kan 
sas?" 

"What  would  I  think?"  she  repeated,  with  a 
merry  glance.  "Why,  that  you  had  not  brought 
Mrs.  Bellford  to  New  York  with  you,  of  course. 
I  do  wish  you  had.  I  would  have  liked  to  see 
Marian."  Her  voice  lowered  slightly — "You 
haven't  changed  much,  Elwyn." 

I  felt  her  wonderful  eyes  searching  mine  and 
my  face  more  closely. 

"Yes,  you  have,"  she  amended,  and  there  was 
a  soft,  exultant  note  in  her  latest  tones;  "I  see 
it  now.  You  haven't  forgotten.  You  haven't 
forgotten  for  a  year  or  a  day  or  an  hour.  I  told 
you  you  never  could." 

I  poked  my  straw  anxiously  in  the  creme  de 
menthe. 

"I'm  sure  I  beg  your  pardon,"  I  said,  a  little 
uneasy  at  her  gaze.  "But  that  is  just  the 
trouble.  I  have  forgotten.  I've  forgotten 
everything." 

She  flouted  my  denial.  She  laughed  de- 
liciously  at  something  she  seemed  to  see  in  my 
face. 

"I've  heard  of  you  at  times,"  she  went  on. 
"You're  quite  a  big  lawyer  out  West — Denver, 
isn't  it,  or  Los  Angeles?  Marian  must  be  very 
proud  of  you.  You  knew,  I  suppose,  that  I 
married  six  months  after  you  did.  You  may 
have  seen  it  in  the  papers.  The  flowers  alone 
cost  two  thousand  dollais." 

She  had  mentioned  fifteen  years.  Fifteen 
years  is  a  long  time. 


A  RAMBLE  IN  APHASIA  133 

"Would  it  be  too  late,"  I  asked,  somewhat 
timorously,  "to  offer  you  congratulations?" 

"Not  if  you  dare  do  it,"  she  answered,  with 
such  fine  intrepidity  that  I  was  silent,  and  began  to 
crease  patterns  on  the  cloth  with  my  thumb  nail. 

"Tell  me  one  thing,"  she  said,  leaning  toward 
me  rather  eagerly — "a  thing  I  have  wanted  to 
know  for  many  years — just  from  a  woman's 
curiosity,  of  course — have  you  ever  dared  since 
that  night  to  touch,  smell,  or  look  at  white  roses 
—at  white  roses  wet  with  rain  and  dew?" 

I  took  a  sip  of  creme  de  menthe. 

"It  would  be  useless,  I  suppose,"  I  said,  with 
a  sigh,  "for  me  to  repeat  that  I  have  no  recol 
lection  at  all  about  these  things.  My  memory 
is  completely  at  fault.  I  need  not  say  how  much 
I  regret  it." 

The  lady  rested  her  arms  upon  the  table, 
and  again  her  eyes  disdained  my  words  and 
went  traveling  by  their  own  route  direct  to 
my  soul.  She  laughed  softly,  with  a  strange 
quality  in  the  sound — it  was  a  laugh  of  happi 
ness — yes,  and  of  content — and  of  misery.  I 
tried  to  look  away  from  her. 

"You  lie,  Elwyn  Bellford,"  she  breathed, 
blissfully.  "Oh,  I  know  you  lie!" 

I  gazed  dully  into  the  ferns. 

"My  name  is  Edward  Pinkhammer,"  I  said. 
"I  came  with  the  delegates  to  the  Druggists' 
National  Convention.  There  is  a  movement 
on  foot  for  arranging  a  new  position  for  the 
bottles  of  tartrate  of  antimony  and  tartrate  of 
potash,  in  which,  very  likely,  you  would  take 
little  interest." 


134  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

j 

A  shining  landau  stopped  before  the  entrance. 
The  lady  rose.  I  took  her  hand,  and  bowed. 

"I  am  deeply  sorry,"  I  said  to  her,  "that  I 
cannot  remember.  I  could  explain,  but  fear 
you  would  not  understand.  You  will  not  con 
cede  Pinkhammer;  and  I  really  cannot  at  all 
conceive  of  the — the  roses  and  other  things." 

"Good-bye,  Mr.  Bellford,"  she  said,  with  her 
happy,  sorrowful  smile,  as  she  stepped  into  her 
carriage. 

I  attended  the  theatre  that  night.  When  I 
returned  to  my  hotel,  a  quiet  man  in  dark 
clothes,  who  seemed  interested  in  rubbing  his 
ringer  nails  with  a  silk  handkerchief,  appeared, 
magically,  at  my  side. 

"Mr.  Pinkhammer,"  he  said,  casually,  giving 
the  bulk  of  his  attention  to  his  forefinger,  "may 
I  request  you  to  step  aside  with  me  for  a  little 
conversation  ?  There  is  a  room  here." 

"Certainly,"  I  answered. 

He  conducted  me  into  a  small,  private  parlor. 
A  lady  and  a  gentleman  were  there.  The  lady, 
I  surmised,  would  have  been  unusually  good- 
looking  had  her  features  not  been  clouded  by  an 
expression  of  keen  worry  and  fatigue.  She  was 
of  a  style  of  figure  and  possessed  coloring  and 
features  that  were  agreeable  to  my  fancy.  She 
was  in  a  traveling  dress;  she  fixed  upon  me  an 
earnest  look  of  extreme  anxiety,  and  pressed 
an  unsteady  hand  to  her  bosom.  I  think  she 
would  have  started  forward,  but  the  gentleman 
arrested  her  movement  with  an  authoritative 
motion  of  his  hand.  He  then  came,  himself, 
to  meet  me.  He  was  a  man  of  forty,  a  little 


A  RAMBLE  IN  APHASIA  135 

gray  about  the  temples,  and  with  a  strong, 
thoughtful  face. 

"Bellford,  old  man,"  he  said,  cordially,  "I'm 
glad  to  see  you  again.  Of  course  we  know 
everything  is  all  right.  I  warned  you,  you 
know,  that  you  were  overdoing  it.  Now,  you'll 
go  back  with  us,  and  be  yourself  again  in  no 
time." 

I  smiled  ironically. 

"I  have  been  'Bellforded'  so  often,"  I  said, 
"that  it  has  lost  its  edge.  Still,  in  the  end,  it 
may  grow  wearisome.  Would  you  be  willing 
at  all  to  entertain  the  hypothesis  that  my  name 
is  Edward  Pinkhammer,  and  that  I  never  saw 
you  before  in  my  life?" 

Before  the  man  could  reply  a  wailing  cry 
came  from  the  woman.  She  sprang  past  his 
detaining  arm.  "Elwyn!"  she  sobbed,  and 
cast  herself  upon  me,  and  clung  tight.  "  Elwyn," 
she  cried  again,  "don't  break  my  heart.  I 
am  your  wife — call  my  name  once — just  once. 
I  could  see  you  dead  rather  than  this  way." 

I  unwound  her  arms  respectfully,  but  firmly. 

"Madame,"  I  said,  severely,  "pardon  me  if 
I  suggest  that  you  accept  a  resemblance  too 
precipitately.  It  is  a  pity,"  I  went  on,  with  an 
amused  laugh,  as  the  thought  occurred  to  me, 
"that  this  Bellford  and  I  could  not  be  kept  side 
by  side  upon  the  same  shelf  like  tartrates  of 
sodium  and  antimony  for  purposes  of  identifi 
cation.  In  order  to  understand  this  allusion," 
I  concluded  airily,  "it  may  be  necessary  for  you 
to  keep  an  eye  on  the  proceedings  of  the  Drug 
gists'  National  Convention." 


136  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

The  lady  turned  to  her  companion,  and 
grasped  his  arm. 

"What  is  it,  Doctor  Volney  ?  Oh,  what  is  it  ?" 
she  moaned. 

He  led  her  to  the  door. 

"Go  to  your  room  for  a  while,"  I  heard  him 
say.  "I  will  remain  and  talk  with  him.  His 
mind  ?  No,  I  think  not — only  a  portion  of  the 
brain.  Yes,  I  am  sure  he  will  recover.  Go  to 
your  room  and  leave  me  with  him." 

The  lady  disappeared.  The  man  in  dark 
clothes  also  went  outside,  still  manicuring  him 
self  in  a  thoughtful  way.  I  think  he  waited 
in  the  hall. 

"I  would  like  to  talk  with  you  a  while,  Mr. 
Pinkhammer,  if  I  may,"  said  the  gentleman  who 
remained. 

"Very  well,  if  you  care  to,"  I  replied,  "and 
will  excuse  me  if  I  take  it  comfortably;  I  am 
rather  tired."  I  stretched  myself  upon  a  couch 
by  a  window  and  lit  a  cigar.  He  drew  a  chair 
near  by. 

"Let  us  speak  to  the  point,"  he  said,  sooth 
ingly.  "Your  name  is  not  Pinkhammer." 

"I  know  that  as  well  as  you  do,"  I  said,  coolly. 
"But  a  man  must  have  a  name  of  some  sort.  I 
can  assure  you  that  I  do  not  extravagantly 
admire  the  name  of  Pinkhammer.  But  when 
one  christens  one's  self  suddenly,  the  fine  names 
do  not  seem  to  suggest  themselves.  But,  sup 
pose  it  had  been  Scheringhausen  or  Scroggins! 
I  think  I  did  very  well  with  Pinkhammer." 

"Your  name,"  said  the  other  man,  seriously, 
"is  Elwyn  C.  Bellford.  You  are  one  of  the 


A  RAMBLE  IN  APHASIA  137 

first  lawyers  in  Denver.  You  are  suffering 
from  an  attack  of  aphasia,  which  has  caused  you 
to  forget  your  identity.  The  cause  of  it  was 
over-application  to  your  profession,  and  perhaps 
a  life  too  bare  of  natural  recreation  and  pleasures. 
The  lady  who  has  just  left  the  room  is  your 
wife." 

"She  is  what  I  would  call  a  fine-looking 
woman,"  I  said,  after  a  judicial  pause.  "I 
particularly  admire  the  shade  of  brown  in  her 
hair." 

"She  is  a  wife  to  be  proud  of.  Since  your 
disappearance,  nearly  two  weeks  ago,  she  has 
scarcely  closed  her  eyes.  We  learned  that  you 
were  in  New  York  through  a  telegram  sent  by 
Isidore  Newman,  a  traveling  man  from  Denver. 
He  said  that  he  had  met  you  in  a  hotel  here,  and 
that  you  did  not  recognize  him." 

"I  think  I  remember  the  occasion,"  I  said. 
"The  fellow  called  me  'Bellford,'  if  I  am  not 
mistaken.  But  don't  you  think  it  about  time, 
now,  for  you  to  introduce  yourself?" 

"I  am  Robert  Volney — Doctor  Volney.  I 
have  been  your  close  friend  for  twenty  years, 
and  your  physician  for  fifteen.  I  came  with 
Mrs.  Bellford  to  trace  you  as  soon  as  we  got 
the  telegram.  Try,  Elwyn,  old  man — try  to 
remember!" 

"What's  the  use  to  try?"  I  asked,  with  a 
little  frown.  "You  say  you  are  a  physician. 
Is  aphasia  curable?  When  a  man  loses  his 
memory  does  it  return  slowly,  or  suddenly?" 

"Sometimes  gradually  and  imperfectly;  some 
times  as  suddenly  as  it  went." 


i38  STRICTLY  BUSINESS 

"Will  you  undertake  the  treatment  of  my 
case,  Doctor  Volney?"  I  asked. 

"Old  friend,"  said  he,  "I'll  do  everything  in 
my  power,  and  will  have  done  everything  that 
science  can  do  to  cure  you." 

"Very  well,"  said  I.  "Then  you  will  con 
sider  that  I  am  your  patient.  Everything  is  in 
confidence  now — professional  confidence." 

"Of  course,"  said  Doctor  Volney 

I  got  up  from  the  couch.  Some  one  had  set 
a  vase  of  white  roses  on  the  centre  table — a 
cluster  of  white  roses,  freshly  sprinkled  and 
fragrant.  I  threw  them  far  out  of  the  window, 
and  then  I  laid  myself  upon  the  couch  again. 

"It  will  be  best,  Bobby,"  I  said,  "to  have 
this  cure  happen  suddenly.  I'm  rather  tired 
of  it  all,  anyway.  You  may  go  now  and  bring 
Marian  in.  But,  oh,  Doc,"  I  said,  with  a  sigh, 
as  I  kicked  him  on  the  shin — "good  old  Doc — 
it  was  glorious!" 


THE    END   OF    VOL.    I 


